Five Nights
by Crossroadsdeals
Summary: Supernatural hunters Sam and Dean Winchester stumble across an old cold case featuring strange occurrences at a long-since closed up children's restaurant-chain. After hearing about a local fright attraction built in tribute to the old restaurant, and apparently featuring relics from the closed-down locations, the brothers realize the story might not be over yet.
1. Prologue: Final call

_A/N: Hello, and welcome to my Supernatural meets Five nights at Freddy's fanfic!_

 _I have taken a bit of a different approach on this story, and I've tried to add as many elements from both Supernatural and Five Nights (Yeah... I call the game series that for short. I just don't like calling it FNAF. I'm sorry), without going completely overboard._

 _I thought this would be a nice way to start the story, as it is how most classic Supernatural episodes start, with a flashback to whatever it is the boys will be investigating in the current episode, or in this case, story._

 _So, yeah! I hope you'll enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it._

* * *

 _November 4_ _th_ _1993_

His hand trembled slightly as he pressed the record-button. For the fourth time in as many nights the old tape recorder whirred to life. He covered his mouth and gave a nervous cough, checking the door to his right as he did so. The darkness and total silence was almost unbearable.

He swallowed hard, pulling a hand through his sweat hair and began speaking: "Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow! Night four. I knew you could do it."

His gaze wandered towards the leftmost door as he could hear the fast approach of metallic footsteps, and he swiftly dove to close the door. This resulted in a loud banging of metal on metal. He collected himself and continued talking.

"Uh, hey, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow."

The ferocious hammering against the door continued and he drew a trembling sigh, loosening his collar a little to better be able to breathe.

"It's been a bad night here for me. Uh, I-I'm kinda glad I recorded these messages for you," – he cleared his throat – "uh, when I did."

His eyes darted towards the open door on the right, and rather than checking the hall-lights, he chose to close this one as well. It was a risky game, but he had to do it. But as he pressed the button, nothing happened. His eyes grew wide with fear. This was it.

"Uh, hey… Do me a favor." He began, trying to shut out the continuous banging to his left, and focusing on delivering his message.

"Maybe sometime, uh, could you check inside those suits in the back room?"

His gaze was firmly fixed on the black opening to his right as he spoke. With the constant hammering coming from the left, he couldn't hear anything. And with the door and hall-lights inactive something could be standing right outside the door, and he wouldn't even know. He swallowed again and silently cleared his throat.

"I'm gonna try to hold out until someone checks. Maybe it won't be so bad."

Fat chance. He looked over at the leftmost door again as it gave a faint creak, wondering how much longer it would hold.

"Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what were in all those empty heads back there. You know…"

He froze as the banging suddenly stopped and he could hear a music box-like chime, followed by a low, raspy moan. His head snapped back towards the open door at his right, just in time to see a shape disappear out of his field of vision and behind him, into the room. He did not dare turn.

"Oh no."

He shut his eyes tightly, a singular teardrop rolling down his cheek as a hand locked firmly around his neck followed by a loud, inhuman screech.


	2. Fazbear's Fright

_A/N: Alright then! Welcome to the actual story! What can I say, I'm not very good at these things... One thing I feel like mentioning is that I have done some minor alterations to the storylines of both Supernatural and Five Nights at Freddy's, in order to make their stories add up, I hope most of you will understand this, and won't find it a big problem._

 _So enjoy, I guess. I hope at least._

* * *

 _October 25_ _th_ _, present day_

The early-morning café guests looked up briefly from their coffees and newspapers at the car stopping outside the café. Out of the car stepped two young men, one taller than most, wearing a plaid shirt and worn jeans, with a large canvas bag flung over his shoulder. The other slightly shorter, wearing a leather jacket and dark jeans. Both had brownish hair, though the taller one had significantly more of it than the other. The two were deeply engulfed in conversation when they entered the café, though the shorter one seemed less interested, than the tall, long-haired one.

"I'm just saying, Dean," Sam Winchester began as they made their way towards the counter. "If you're gonna bring company to our motel room at night, give me a minute's notice so I can pack my stuff, maybe yours too and book another room."

"Come on, Sammy." Dean replied. "She wasn't that bad." Sam scoffed.

"No? She tried to steal my laptop." he pointed out, and then continued when Dean made to reply: " _And_ your keys."

Dean's face froze in an expression of horrified shock.

"Bitch did what? When?" he demanded to know.

"'Bout an hour before you woke up." Sam said, trying to hide the smugness in his voice as they stopped by the counter.

"Well, then why didn't you tell me that!" Dean exclaimed, obviously still upset.

"Because you'd have shot her." Sam replied shortly, casting a glance around the café. By now they were getting weird glances from several of the guests. Time to put an end to this little argument.

"Damn straight I would've." Dean declared promptly. "Trying to steal my Baby…" He shot a glance towards the window through which they could clearly see their beloved black '67 Impala – the closest thing the brothers had ever come to a home – standing parked.

A waitress came over to them. She was plump, middle aged, wearing a small white apron, over an old fashioned looking red-and-white checkered dress.

"What can I get you, boys?" she asked, her face folding into a well-worn smile as she flipped her notepad open. Dean glanced up at the menu, displayed above the counter.

"I'll have today's special, and a coffee. Black. Oh! And a slice of that pie over there, too." He added when he noticed the pie-stand on the counter a little further off.

"Sure, thing, sugar. You?" the waitress said, pointing her pen to Sam.

"Uhh, make that two coffees and a ham-and-cheese sandwich with a side of salad, please."

"Alrighty, then! I'll be right back." The waitress smiled and walked off.

While they waited, Sam reached to grab an abandoned newspaper lying by the seat next over. As he picked it up, a small flyer slid out of it and sailed to the floor. The boys gave it a brief glance, but Dean had to look a second time. Frowning, he slid off his seat and picked up the little piece of paper examining it.

"Hey, Sammy." He said sitting back on his stool.

"Hm?" Sam said, not looking up from the paper.

"This name look familiar to you?" Dean looked up at him, and Sam put the paper down to examine the flyer he was reached.

The flyer showed a picture of a rather large room with a window at the front and a doorless opening to the left, and some rather disturbing animalistic figures. Below it was a text which read:

'FAZBEAR'S FRIGHT!

Re-discover the truly terrifying secrets of the old pizzeria in this marvelous new attraction, featuring _real_ artifacts from the closed-down restaurants!

Coming soon to Ravenhale amusement park'

In colorful letters. Sam let out a silent scoff, his brow furrowing into a thoughtful frown. But before he could think more about it the waitress returned with their orders.

"Here you are, sweetums, Two coffees, black, one today's special with a slice of pie and a ham-and-cheese, side of salad. Enjoy!"

The boys thanked her and dug in.

About halfway through the meal, Dean looked over at his brother, expectantly, saying with his mouth full of food: "So, that name seem familiar to you too?"  
Sam, having a little more manners than his brother, hurried to swallow.

"Yeah," he said, ducking under the counter to find his bag. He opened it while sitting upright again, and pulled an old, tattered leather journal from it.

"I think Dad mentioned it in his journal somewhere."

He opened the old book, and began to leaf through it. Pages upon pages filled with weird symbols, old newspaper articles, notes and drawings flipped before his face, until he finally found what he was looking for. An ancient-looking newspaper clipping describing the grand opening of a brand new pizzeria. And on the page opposite, a somewhat newer-looking article describing its closure seemingly only a few years later. There were a few other articles too, folded together and paper-clipped onto the page.

"Here it is." Sam said, putting the journal down. They bent over it reading together. The article wasn't big. It could fit unfolded on the journal's A6 page. At the top was a picture of a generally normal-looking children's restaurant, with what looked to be the owner, and maybe the then-town mayor smiling and shaking hands. Underneath, the text read:

' _ **Grand opening!**_

 _The all-loved, well-known Fredbear's Family Diner re-opens now as the new pizza-chain Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, featuring all-new animatronics ,equipped with a brand new program, designed to be more secure and child friendly._ (At this point the boys exchanged skeptical looks)

 _The restaurant opens later this week (see additional flyer for more information) and invites children and adults alike to a special opening feast with games, musical numbers featuring the brand new animatronics, an all-new attraction for the younger children, and of course lots and lots of delicious pizza!_

" _We are happy to reinvent the old family diner into a place where kids and parents alike can once again have fun and enjoy a great meal together." Restaurant owner, and leader for the new corporation Fazbear Entertainment Matt Cawthon says, smiling. "We are hoping to see a lot of smiling faces at our grand opening."_

The next article, presumably dated some years later, though they couldn't be sure since there was no date on either article, explained about the closing of the pizzeria. This one was even smaller than the former, and featured no pictures whatsoever. It had probably been cut out from the back of the paper. The text read as follows:

' _ **Freddy's closing down**_

 _Local pizzeria Freddy Fazbear's has announced their closure by the end of the year. The restaurant has encountered many problems, and struggled with complaints about hygiene, possible malfunctioning in the animatronic mascots and questionable employees over the course of many years, and many wonder why it hasn't been shut down sooner._

" _We like to believe that it's because, though adults might not find it charming, our restaurant and beloved mascot animals still holds a special place in the hearts of the children." A spokesman for Fazbear Entertaiment, the restaurant owners, announced, but did not want to elaborate further, or answer any more of our questions.'_

"I'm sure it does." Dean said, answering to the spokesman's comment as he sat back raising his eyebrows at his brother, who still sat leaned over the journal.

"That wasn't really a lot of information…" Sam said slowly, pulling the additional news-clippings out from beneath the paperclip. He unfolded them and lay them flat out across the journal. Dean, chewing on a piece of his pie, once again leaned in to read. The first one was a help wanted advert, asking for a night guard. Nothing too terribly interesting.

"One hundred and twenty dollars a week?" Dean exclaimed after reading through the short notice. "That's not even– is that even legal?" He glanced up at his brother.

"I'm assuming this article is from around the early nineties when minimum wage was on about three to four dollar an hour." Sam replied, not looking up as he pushed the advert out of the way and proceeded to read the other articles.

"Dude, it must've sucked to work minimum wage back then…" Dean muttered. Sam glanced up at him briefly.

"Well, to be fair, the prices were lower." He pointed out.

"Yeah, I _know_ that." Dean replied, picking up the clipping and examining it. There was a picture of one of the restaurant's animatronics, probably Freddy – It looked like a bear – in the upper left corner. "But still… A hundred and twenty a week for watching over this creepy-ass dude and his friends?" he showed to the picture in the article. "That gig better've scored you some free pizza."

Sam let out a scoff of laugher and read on.

"Here's something…" He announced a short time later.

"What?" Dean asked, leaning in. His mouth was once again full of food, and he sprinkled pie crumbs all over the journal as he spoke. Sam sent him a disapproving look.

"Dude." He said, picking up the book and brushing the crumbs off the pages. Dean backed off, lifting his hands as he finished chewing.

"So what've you got?" he asked after having swallowed the pie. Sam pushed the old news clipping towards his brother.

"Apparently five kids were abducted, possibly killed at the restaurant at some point." He said as Dean skimmed through the brief article. It told a story of a total of five children disappearing, presumably over the course of days, or even weeks. The kids were apparently lured into a back room, after which they were never seen or heard of again. Later, complaints were filed about a foul stench coming from the animatronic mascots as well as what looked like blood leaking from their facial area. But the details were vague. It mentioned something about the police making an arrest, but never confirmed if they'd gotten the right guy. And the children, though presumed dead, were apparently never found.

"Huh." He said once he'd read through it all. Sam met his gaze.

"So what do you think?" he asked. Dean frowned.

"What do I think what?" he asked.

"Is it worth looking into, you think?" Sam asked. Dean gave a slight shrug.

"Sure." He said idly. "I mean, it's in Dad's journal. That's gotta count for something, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…" Sam said slowly, pushing the old news clippings around.

"But…" he continued on, his inner sceptic not entirely satisfied with the facts laid before him.

Dean looked expectantly at him. Sam sighed.

"I mean, these articles are old. Maybe someone's already taken care of it. Hell, we don't even know what 'it' is."

Dean picked up the flyer and held it up for Sam to see.

"This place is featuring real artifacts from the old restaurants, right?" he said. Sam couldn't help drawing a slight sigh. He knew only too well where this was going.

"Now if there was anything supernatural going on back at the restaurants, then chances are there might be something going on at this place too. We should at least have a look. Make sure." Dean said earnestly. Sam nodded. Sometimes he admired his brother's ability to believe so strongly in what meager facts they had.

"Yeah. I know." He said, looking down at the articles again.

"It's not a lot to go on, though…" he continued on. "We should find out more about this place and what made it pique Dad's interest in the first place." He refolded the loose articles and placed them back under the paperclip again.

Dean gave a short nod and turned his attention to the waitress as she walked past.

"'Scuse me, sweetheart?" he said, she turned around, and Dean flashed her one of his womanizer smiles.

"Is there a library around here?" he asked. The waitress smiled back.

"About one block down that way, dear." She replied, pointing down the road outside the café.

"Grand old building." She continued. "Hard to miss."

"Okay, thank you." Dean said, reaching into his jacket for his wallet. Then he stood up, going through his pockets. After searching them all, he turned to Sam, a look of bewildered shock in his eyes.

"Bitch stole my wallet!"


	3. Research

_A/N: Hey! Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I've been a bit busy. And sick. And thank you guys for following and reading and commenting on my story! It means a lot to me to know that people actually care about what I write. I'm also glad this isn't as outdated a topic as I thought it might have been. I started developing this story sometime between the second and third Five Nights game, but didn't get around to to write it until after the fourth was released. And I wanted to finish it before publishing. I dunno, I just wanted to make sure the quality was in place before releasing it online._

 _But now i'm rambling. Please enjoy this next part, which is a bit of a classic research scene, or something. I hope you like it, and thanks again for all kind comments and for following my story!_

* * *

"Shut up, Sam, this isn't funny." Dean said for the millionth time as he parked the car on the street outside the library.

Sam let out yet another snort of laughter. He'd been laughing nonstop since they left the café, despite the fact that he'd had to pay for both their meals. Dean's state of near-panic had simply been way too amusing for him to think about the extra bills he'd have to spend. Eventually he drew a deep breath and dried his eyes before turning to his brother.

"No, you're right." He said in a not too convincing tone. "I'm sorry."

Dean rolled his eyes and opened the glove compartment.

"So should we do the newspaper gig if anyone asks?" Dean asked, pulling out their ID box and looking through the various plastic cards, laminated IDs and leather-casings.

"Yeah, sure." Sam replied, seemingly not too interested, as he checked his bag. Dean handed him a laminated card the size of a credit card, and they left the car.

The waitress hadn't been lying. The building really was grand, possibly old too, but it had been well cared for, so it looked brand new. There was a large wooden sign over the main entry with the word LIBRARY printed in ornate golden letters, just in case the boys should have any doubts they'd come to the right place.

"Albert Dinkle?" Sam asked after reading the information on his fake ID. He shot Dean an incredulous glance. The older brother only shrugged in reply. His own card read something along the lines of Rob Ragno. Equally idiotic names.

The electronic doors swished open at their approach and the boys entered into a cool, dimly lit reception-area. An ancient-looking man sat behind the front desk, working an equally ancient-looking computer.

"Can I help you, lads?" the man croaked, looking up as the boys approached.

"Do you have any kind of news archives here?" Sam asked.

"Why, sure we do!" the man said, jumping to his feet. "Anyhting in particular you're interested in?" he asked as he rounded the counter.

The boys looked at each other

"Well…" Sam hesitated. "We're looking for information on an… an old restaurant that shut down some years ago?"

The old man halted, turning to them, a rather quizzical look on his face.

"I see… And what's the name of this restaurant?" he said, narrow eyes going from Sam to Dean. The brothers once again exchanged glances.

"Fred… Freddy Fazbear..?" Dean attempted.

"Ah, of course!" the old librarian exclaimed clasping his hands together as he turned again and continued on into the library. "Popular choice these days. Tell me, you aren't friends of this Jason-fellow, are you?" He shot a glance at the boys over his shoulder.

"Sorry, who?" Dean said, once again looking over at Sam, who only shrugged helplessly in reply.

"The man behind this horror-house thingymajig. He's been in an out these doors digging up stories on old Freddy's a lot these past few months. Knows all there is to know about the place." The old librarian informed them, as he showed them to a separate room filled with old archive cabinets and framed news-clippings decorating the walls. At the center sat a small desk with a reading light on top and a chair in front of it.

"No, but we would like to talk to him." Sam said, suddenly interested. "You got his contact information, by chance?"

The librarian stopped and looked at him.

"Well, yeah, but I can't just give away information like that to just about anyone." He replied. "You understand that, don't you?"

Sam smiled disarmingly.

"Of course, sir." He said, pulling out his fake ID card. "But you see, we're reporters from the Weekly World News, and we're working on an article about the old restaurant. We would just like to ask him a few questions."

The old man pulled out a tiny pair of glasses from his breast pocket and examined the card he was handed.

"Well, I suppose he wouldn't have anything against that…" he said slowly, handing the card back to Sam.

"I'll go look through my files. You knock yourself out. Start with the seventies trough nineties-section." He pointed to a set of cabinets at the back of the room. "That's when the place was in its heydays." He let out a hoarse scoff. "That is if you can call it that." He added, turning for the door.

"Man, these Fazbear-dudes really know how to cover their tracks." Dean said about an hour later when they'd gone through several old newspapers, interrupted only by the old librarian returning with this Jason-person's contact information, and discovered little more than what they already knew.

They'd found out the dates for the articles they already had read, and a little bit about the original diner, which had been established in the late sixties, and gone out of business after the missing children incident in '79.

Sam let out a soft scoff.

"I'll say." He replied, looking up from his laptop. "I've run their name through every possible search engine. Nothing. It's like they never even existed.

I did find a pretty interesting article from some occult magazine, though…" he added looking down at the screen again. Dean put his paper down.

"Really?" he said. "What's it say?" Sam found the article and pushed the laptop towards his brother, who leaned in to read.

 _ **Fazbear animatronics: Malfunctioning, or haunted?**_

Read the title. Dean raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

' _It is no secret that family pizzeria Freddy Fazbear's has had some bumps in the road along its years. Even before it became known as the restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, the old diner suffered some terrible tragedies leading to a string of nasty rumors, which eventually lead to the restaurant's ultimate downfall in '93._

 _One of them was the so-called 'missing children incident' that occurred in the summer of '79._

 _Over the course of seven weeks a total of five children went missing. All was last seen at the old diner. Police lead a thorough investigation, searching the premises and interrogating all employees. A piece of surveillance tape was discovered, showing a possible suspect wearing a restaurant mascot costume leading two children through a door marked 'employees only', from which neither kids nor suspect is ever seen leaving. The police suspected foul play and linked the incident to a previous episode at the diner's previous location where a child went missing and was later found murdered and horribly mutilated in the diner's dumpster. In an interview, leading investigator Mark Haddock stated that they did consider there to be a possible connection between these tragedies, and that they did not rule out a possible serial killer._

 _But without evidence the police's theories remained purely circumstantial._

 _Eventually, after many weeks of investigation an arrest was made, and the case was put to rest, but the missing children were never found._

 _Shortly afterwards the local diner which would later become known as Freddy Fazbear's Pizza shut down, due to a health and safety violation ._

 _Years later the old diner was bought up by the elusive company Fazbear Entertainment, which renamed the diner and reopened it in 1987 at brand new facilities and with brand new animatronics, while the old mascots were kept for spare parts._

 _But the restaurant didn't last long. During the weeks following the grand reopening tragedy struck once again. This time there were no fatalities, but the incident was no less gruesome. Apparently a culprit snuck in at the restaurant and proceeded to tamper with the animatronics' programming. This led to the mascots malfunctioning, which again led to the tragic bite of '87, where an animatronic bit off the frontal lobe of an unsuspecting victim. Miraculously the person survived. Fazbear Entertainment did their best to cover up the entire thing, and thusly very little is known about this episode, but the redesigned mascots were scrapped upon the inevitable closing of the restaurant._

 _By now the restaurant was believed to be cursed and the animatronics not so much malfunctioning as in fact haunted. Night guards on duty complained about sudden temperature drops, static on the security monitors, malfunctioning electronic equipment and, perhaps most unsettling of all, animatronic figures attempting to enter their office at night. While the company wrote it off as a possible error in the mascots' new program, rumors rose about the restaurant being haunted by the spirits of the missing children of '79. Especially since the new animatronics weren't the only ones seen moving around. Night guards rarely ever lasted a full week._

 _When the restaurant reopened for the last time in the early 90's the old animatronics were back on stage, and laughter had returned to these accursed halls. The restaurant was finally going well._

 _But of course it couldn't end there. When security guard Scott Callen who worked nightshifts at the restaurant went missing in his final week of working there, rumors once again sprung up. Scott had a long history with the restaurants and the company Fazbear Entertainment, having worked there since its mere beginning. Police looked into his disappearance, but couldn't find any evidence to link it to foul play. His disappearance remains a mystery to this day, much like the missing children._

 _We may never know the full story of what really happened within the walls of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but the speculations never end.'_

When finished reading Dean raised is eyebrows, looking over at Sam. Sam raised his own eyebrows, returning the gaze.

"So, what do you think?" he said.

"I think whoever wrote this must be some kind of wizard." Dean replied, showing to the text on Sam's computer screen.

"I mean how did they even know all of that? We've been sitting here how long now and we've barely discovered more than what we already knew!" Sam only shook his head in reply.

"But seriously, though." He continued on. "What those guards described. Temperature drops, faulty equipment, animatronics moving at night?"

Dean nodded.

"Sounds like our kind of gig." He said. "And if this frighthouse-thing really does display original artefacts from the old restaurants, chances are this story's not over yet."

"So where do you wanna start?" Sam asked. When Dean responded with a quizzical look, he continued on; "You wanna search down this Jason guy first? Maybe take a look at this attraction of his? Or should we go to the police station? See if we can dig up any more facts on this missing children case?"

Dean thought for a moment.

"Split up?" he eventually suggested. "You go to the police station? I'll go find Jason?" Sam gave a half shrug, half nod.

"Alright." He said.


	4. Cold Case

_A/N: Hey! Guess who hasn't been kidnapped, killed and stuffed into an animatronic suit! Or burned to a crisp on the ceiling. But I have been busy, and I have had a lot of crap to deal with as of late. I very nearly lost the entire story due to my insane stupidity, but I managed to save it! So now that's school's over for me and I've moved into a new place I hope to be able to update this a little faster for you guys C: I feel like this concept is getting terribly outdated already. But, eh... I still find it fascinating. So here's the next part! I'm sorry it took me so long, I hope you'll forgive me!_

* * *

Not long after, Sam found himself outside Ravenhale police station. It was a rundown two-storey brick house with faded awnings over the windows. A bell announced his arrival as he pushed open the door and entered into a shaded reception. The receptionist, a woman about his age looked up as he approached. She sent Sam a brilliant smile, which he couldn't help return.

"Can I help you with anything?" she asked.

"Yeah, uh…" Sam searched out his fake ID "My name is Albert," he paused briefly, silently cursing his brother. "Dinkle. I'm with the Weekly World News. I'd like to speak with whoever's in charge?"

The girl's smile faded a bit as she examined his ID.

"What for?" she asked handing it back to him.

"I'd just like to speak to him about an old cold case of yours." Sam replied, smiling his most disarming smile.

"Hold on. I'll check if he's in." the girl replied, putting a phone to her ear. Sam thanked her and proceeded look idly around the room while waiting.

"Chief Haddock? There's a Mr. Dinkle from the Weekly World News here for you."

There was a brief silence while she listened to the chief's answer. Then she lowered the phone and addressed Sam.

"He'll be seeing you right now." She informed him, pointing down a hallway past the reception.

"Second door."

Sam thanked her once again and walked past her down the hallway. As he approached the door marked Chief Inspector the door swung open and a middle-aged man with a strong build and grizzled hair came out to greet him. He had the look of a man who'd seen a lot, but he managed a strained smile as he took Sam's hand.

Sam introduced himself and Chief Haddock led him into his office.

"So what can I do for you, Mr. Dinkle?" the chief inspector asked, closing the door behind him. Sam had taken the liberty to examine his surroundings and noticed a nameplate resting on the chief's desk.

"I'm working on a story regarding the old restaurant Freddy Fazbear's… I'm sorry, you're Mark Haddock?" he asked. The chief inspector gave a short nod of acknowledgement.

"You led the investigation on the missing children back then?" Sam pressed on. Chief Haddock let out a soft scoff, once again nodding. Sam scoffed too, not quite believing his luck.

"I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the case?" Sam asked. The chief inspector sent him a truly apologetic look

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I don't give interviews on that case." Sam's excitement ebbed out a little.

"I understand." He said. "But," he continued, as Chief Haddock made to escort him to the door.

"I was wondering if you'd let me have a look at the old case file. If you still have it."

Chief Haddock stopped, rubbing his eyes.

"Mr. Dinkle." He began, turning to Sam again. "You need to understand that this case is very sensitive material for a lot of people around here. I don't want details on it to be released to the public."

"I understand, Chief Inspector." Sam hurried to say. "But I'm not looking for facts to add to my story. I'm looking for insight to better understand what happened back then. This is purely for research."

The Chief Inspector held Sam's gaze for a long time, seemingly considering his statement. Then he gave a deep sigh.

"Follow me."

He led Sam downstairs into a dusty, dimly lit room where shelves containing old cardboard boxes were placed in neat rows throughout the room. Chief Inspector Haddock walked resolutely in among the shelves and pulled down a particularly musty looking box. He looked briefly through it and pulled out a thick, brown case-file.

"I can't tell you how many times I've been down here to look at this." He said, handing Sam the file.

"It's been an obsession ever since I was assigned that accursed case."

"So you think you– they missed something back then?" Sam asked, carefully picking his words. He'd only just gained this man's trust with the case file. He was not about to ruin it now.

"Well, we never did find the children." Chief Haddock pointed out. "And between you and me, I doubt we even caught the right guy." He added bitterly. Sam looked up from the casefile.

"No?" he asked. "How so?"

Chief Haddock took the casefile out of Sam's hand and held it up.

"In my experience, to be able to pull something like this off. Abduct five, possibly six kids and make them disappear forever? You need to be calm, collected to an almost cynical degree. You'll need to have your wits about you at all times." He let out a silent sigh. "The guy we caught was too emotional. His mind was too all over the place. I doubt he'd be able to do something like this if he received instructions on it."

"So you think he was framed?" Sam asked.

"Framed, or just plain unlucky." Chief Haddock replied, handing the file back to Sam. "Either way it doesn't matter now.

Kid killed himself. Just after his conviction." He added when he saw Sam's look of confusion.

"Oh." Sam said, feeling a sting of sorrow for the kid. If the chief inspector's suspicions were correct, that must have been a horrible way to go.

"So what led to his arrest?" Sam asked after a brief silence. Chief Haddock shook his head slowly.

"It's all in the file." He said, turning to the door. "Let me know when you're finished here."

And then he disappeared, leaving Sam alone with the file. Sam couldn't help but pity the old man. It couldn't be easy to have lead an investigation like that, and then never really reach any conclusions.

He found a small desk at the far end of the room and sat down there to read.

It turned out the reason the kid, a seventeen year old named Ralph Winston who worked as a maintenance guy at the restaurant, had been arrested after a partial print was found on the costume believed to be used the culprit had turned out to match Ralph's index finger.

Ralph had a history with petty theft and minor assault, and – despite endlessly claiming his innocence in this case – was quickly convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Sam learned the names of the children and who their families were. All locals.

The reports filed the kids as simply missing, but in a corner of the paper someone had added 'presumed dead' by hand.

Sam sighed, looking through the various photographs that came with the file. He picked up a group picture of the restaurant employees, gathered in front of the restaurant's show stage with the animatronics in the background. In addition to the large bear he assumed to be Freddy wearing a top hat and wielding a microphone , there was a bunny to his right with a guitar in his hands and what he assumed to be a duck or possibly a chicken – it had a beak – stationed a little further behind the other two at Freddy's left. It was holding what looked like a cupcake with eyes high in the air.

The picture seemed to have been taken at the diner's grand opening.

He flipped through the rest of the photos and found Ralph Winston's mugshot. The chief had been right. He really didn't look the murdering type.

The remaining photos showed the presumed crime scene, and some stills of what Sam believed to be security footage. The images were blurry and dark, but he could make out a tall and lumpy figure, guiding two smaller figures through a door of some sort. Anything else was hopeless to sort out. Maybe if he could see the actual video tape…

He packed together the casefile and left the archives.


	5. Jason

_A/N: Damn... I was hoping to get along a little faster with this story now... Sorry for the long wait, guys, I'm glad there's still people out there who seem to genuinely care about this story! I feel like with the upcoming game, this is beginning to become a bit of an outdated subject. But I still get favourites and followings from you guys which is just the best feeling in the world!_

 _So this part is named Jason... Funny story about that, actually... I recently read the book based on the games The Silver Eyes (really good book, by the way. If you haven't already, you should go pick it up) and in it there's his kid named Jason. No relation to my character, or why I named him that, as this book came out after I'd finished writing this fanfic. I just think it's funny._

 _Anyways! Have fun with the next part!_

* * *

In the meantime Dean parked the Impala outside the address he'd been given by the old librarian. It was a fairly normal-looking house. Two stories, painted in a pale green color. A pleasant little garden patch was planted before the front porch.

Dean gave himself a quick once-over in the rearview mirror before he stepped out of the car.

He checked for the fake ID in his pocked, just to make sure he still had it. The incident at the café that morning had really stuck with him.

Then he approached the front door and rang the doorbell.

After a minute the door opened and an older woman poked her head out. She had short, curly gray hair and a general concerned look about her. Dean gave a smile and a short nod.

"Can I help you with anything?" the woman asked.

"So sorry to disturb you, ma'am." Dean replied. "I'm looking for a guy named Jason? Is he here by any chance?"

"Jason?" asked the woman surprised. "What do you want with him?"

"Ah, my name is Rob Ragno. I'm with the Weekly World News. I'd just like to ask him a few questions regarding this new tourist attraction he's working on." Dean replied. The woman gave him a skeptical look.

"Can I see some ID?" she asked. Dean gave a short laugh.

"Of course." He said cheerily, handing her his laminated ID card. She took a good two minutes examining it.

"I'm sorry to tell you he's not here right now." She eventually said, handing him the card back.

"Do you know where he is?" Dean asked.

"Probably up by the amusement park, working on that attraction of his." The woman replied, and Dean noticed a certain sour undertone to her words.

"Okay. Thank you, Ma'am." he said and gave a short bow before he turned to the car again.

It didn't take him long to find Ravenhale Amusement park. It lay in a foresty area along the road leading out of town.

Dean stepped out of the car looking up at the entrance. The entire park was surrounded by a several feet tall wooden wall. He could see parts of a roller coaster sticking up above it, but other than that no rides were visible.

There was only one car parked there other than the Impala. Not all that strange considering the year was nearing Halloween. Not exactly high season for amusement parks. Dean approached the park and found that the entrance was closed off by a couple of mesh fence gates. Dean walked up to them and looked through. The area beyond was swathed in a light fog and he couldn't sort out much of the surroundings. There seemed to be a large open area just beyond the ticket booths, and a flight of stairs leading up from there.

"Hello?" he called, in lack of any better ideas. His voice echoed throughout the park.

"Anyone there? Jason?"

He shut up at the sound of approaching voices and stood still, staring intently into the fog. Down the stairs towards him came two indistinct figures, apparently arguing hotly.

"Relax, dude…" Dean could hear a young man say once they'd come close enough for him to sort out the words. "You're totally blowing this out of proportions."

"Relax? _Relax?!_ " came a different voice, a little more high pitched, but Dean recognized this too as male. "I'm telling you, Jason, that thing was _moving around_! And I _swear_ one time it was in two places at once!"

"Look, all this has a completely natural explanation." Came the calmer voice again. "Did you check the maintenance display? Make sure the ventilation was working properly?"

" _Yes_ , I checked ventilation!" Replied the other one. "And did I mention that the thing was _inside the vents too_?!"

"In the vents?" replied the first one with a laugh. "Now you're messing with me."

There was a brief silence before the calmer of the two laughed again.

"C'mon! That thing can't crawl, or-or move at all! We had it bolted to the floor!" he said. By now they were just on the other side of the ticket booths and one of them, a tall shaggy looking dude in a colorful shirt noticed Dean. The other, a much shorter man wearing what could only be described as a security uniform, was glaring furiously at the other before he too turned his gaze and spotted Dean. Both stopped dead in their tracks. Dean flashed a slight smile and gave a little wave.

"Who the hell are you?" The short one snapped, crossing his arms.

"Now, Marcus…" The other one hurried to say. "That's not how we greet people."

He approached the locked gates.

"That being said, though. I really would like to know who you are, dude. What're you doing here? The park's closed." He said.

"Oh!" Dean laughed, searching out his fake ID. "My name is Rob Ragno with the Weekly World News." he said, holding out the card. "I'm looking for a man named Jason. I'd like to ask him a few questions about his project, uh, Fazbear's Fright? I'm working on a story, you see." The shaggy man lit up.

"Well, you've found him!" he exclaimed happily. "I'm Jason. How can I help you, bro?"

As he spoke the shorter one, Marcus, had come up behind him and now snatched Dean's ID out of his hand.

"Rob Ragno?" he said in a disapproving tone, examining the card. "Sounds made up." He looked defiantly at Dean.

"Go home and get some rest, Marc. You're tired." Jason declared, picking the card out of his hand and giving it back to Dean.

Jason unlocked the door and he and Marcus exited the park.

Jason walked Marcus to the car, talking quietly to him. Marcus replied in short, sharp sentences.

When he'd eventually gotten into the car and driven off, Jason returned to Dean.

"Sorry about Marcus." He said. "He's had a rather… difficult night."

"Oh? How so?" Dean asked. Jason gave a slight shrug.

"I've asked him to look after the attraction at night. Kind of like the old stories, you know?" Jason replied, and then sighed. "But I'm not sure if he's cut out for the job…"

"Why's that?" Dean said.

"Well, he was fine the first few nights, but then he started talking nonsense about stuff moving around, and electronics failing. Stuff like that."

"Really?"

"Yeah!" Jason laughed. "One would think being a night guard at anything with the name Fazbear in it just triggers that kind of behavior."

Dean joined in on the laugh, only not as heartily. What he'd heard had only confirmed him and Sam's suspicion from the start. The story of Fazbear's animatronics was not over.

"So is it true that you feature actual relics from the old restaurant?" Dean asked.

"Oh, Yeah! We found some real nifty stuff on auctions and in one of the old locations which was left untouched after its closing."

"I see." Dean said. "What kind of stuff?"

"Oh, all sorts of things!" Jason replied excited. "Old drawings, pieces of animatronic suits, stage props. One time we even got hold of some working arcade machines from one of the old locations."

Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Wow!" He commented. "Impressive."

"Thanks, dude." Jason said. "Took us the better part of the year and a fair bit of money, too, but in the end it was all worth it."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Dean smiled.

"Hey, you want a coffee, or something? I got the keys to the employee breakroom." Jason asked, pointing a thumb towards the park entry. Dean gave a slight shrug.

"Sure."

"So what's this story you're workin' on, then?" Jason asked as he led Dean through the empty theme park. Dean scratched his chin, trying to come up with something to reply.

"Well, it's about the old restaurant, and the, uh… stories surrounding it." He began feebly.

"Pretty interesting stuff, right?" Jason said, stopping at one of the souvenir shops and pulling out a set of keys.

"Yeah." Dean agreed. "But facts are hard to come by."

"Yeah, they did their best to cover up the entire thing." Jason said bitterly, leading Dean through the shop and into a plainly decorated room at the back. "Took me ages to get where I am today."

"They?" Dean asked. "Who they?"

"The restaurant owners, course!" replied Jason hotly. It was evident they'd touched in on a sore topic for him.

"Well, them and the police. And everybody else just looked the other way, pretended nothing happened." He dumped down in a worn leather couch with a heavy sigh. Then he jumped up again as if he'd just sat on a nail.

"Oh, that's right! I promised you a coffee, didn't I?"

"Oh, that's okay." Dean hurried to say. "Don't worry about it."

"Well at least accept a soda." Jason said with a crooked smile. "On the house." He went over to a fridge standing in the corner of a small kitchen area in the far end of the room.

"So you've been working on this for years?" Dean asked, as Jason returned with two glass bottles.

"Well, the horror house-idea is fairly new, but yeah. I've been gathering facts on old Freddy's since I was a kid." He replied, handing one bottle to Dean. "Cheers."

They clinked the bottles together and took a sip. It'd been years since Dean'd had a soda, and the sparkly sweetness overwhelmed him for a moment. He let out a slight cough. Jason smiled faintly.

"Not your usual poison, I take it?" he commented, taking a new sip of his own bottle. Dean shrugged, but decided not to elaborate on the subject.

"So what can you tell me about the restaurant's history?" he asked. Jason leaned back, looking out into the air

"Well, the place's been around since forever. It was a popular bub in the late eighteenth century, The Dancing Bear it was called, but it wasn't until about a hundred and fifty years later it became the family restaurant we know today." He began.

"Any particular reason they changed up their MO all of a sudden?" Dean asked.

"Change of owners." Jason replied. "The place was a family business, but in sixty-eight the original owners of the pub died without a successor, and these new dudes took over. After running the pub into the ground, they found out they'd try to reopen it as a family place. And so the original Fredbear's Family Diner was born. The only animatronic on stage back then was old Freddy, and I don't think he did much, but I digress. The restaurant was doin' well until seventy-six when a child was abducted and later found dead on the premises."

"Now this I've heard of." Dean exclaimed. "They never caught the guy, right?"

"Well, yes and no." Jason said. "They made an arrest a few years later when the diner reopened and five more children went missing. These were never found."

There was a brief silence while both men took a sip of their sodas.

"But rumor has it that the kids might have been stuffed inside the animatronic suits."

"Really?" Dean said, sitting up.

"Yeah. See, after reopening the restaurant owners invested in three more animatronics to accompany Freddy, to – I don't know – move things along I guess, try to attract customers. And after the kids went missing Freddy and his friends began malfunctioning. Reports were filed on blood and mucus pouring from their facial area and a horrible stink coming from their bodies. One customer described the smell as reanimated corpses. But before the police could investigate, the place shut down and the animatronics were put into storage and lost.

When they reappeared in eighty-seven, the suits were in such decrepit condition police couldn't find anything on them, and the case was left unsolved. It was obvious the animatronics had pretty much been left to rot, so the company decided that instead of attempting to restore the old ones, they'd invest in a set of replicas – Toy Animatronics they called them, and they were equipped with a buttload of security measures."

"Security measures?" Dean asked. "What kind of security measures?"

"Oh, all sorts of stuff. Facial recognition, noise detection, and they were all tied into a kind of criminal database, as to help secure the restaurant."

"Well, that doesn't sound creepy at all…" Dean commented, and Jason let out a short laugh.

"Well, the system wasn't flawless, and the animatronics tended to roam the restaurant at night, and since they were programmed to follow noise and find people they had an unfortunate tendency to wander into the security office at night. At least that's the official story."

"Alright, and what's the unofficial story?" Dean asked. Jason smiled mysteriously.

"Well, rumor sprung up that the restaurant was haunted and the animatronics were possessed by the ghosts of the missing children, and that whoever was inside the restaurant at night would be killed at their hands."

"Is that so?" Dean said.

"Yeah." He said "Story has it that if they found you they'd try to forcefully stuff you into a Freddy Fazbear suit."

"That actually happen to someone?" Dean asked, and Jason laughed.

"No, dude!" he exclaimed. "It's just a story."

"Anyway," he then went on. "Tragedy did strike again, but not at night. Only a few weeks into its opening someone snuck into the restaurant, wearing a spare suit, and tampered with the new animatronics causing one of them to bite someone. The guy survived, miraculously, but only just. Needless to say the location closed down soon after.

But Fazbear Entertainment wasn't goin' to give up just yet, so they restored the old animatronics and reopened the restaurant at a much smaller location and with a much smaller budget. And for the first time since the seventies the restaurant was doin' alright. The animatronics were doin' their job, and there were no reports about them haunting the restaurant at night. The guy workin' nights there even lasted a whoopin' five years on the job.

That is, of course, 'til he went missing in '93. After that the company kind of just gave up on the whole restaurant, and the place was left to rot."

"And what happened to the animatronics?" Dean asked.

"Well the toy ones were scrapped after eighty-seven, but as for the originals… No one knows for sure." Replied Jason, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Some say they were destroyed after the restaurant's closing, others that they were put in storage and forgotten. One thing's for sure, though," He said, looking Dean in the eye.

"It's been a royal pain for me tryin' to track down anything related to them. All I ever found were some spare parts and pieces of old suits." Jason sighed, dragging a hand through his shaggy hair, and for a moment he looked absolutely exhausted.

Then he looked up at Dean, and a weary but somewhat triumphant smile spread on his lips.

"But then, a few days ago I was contacted by a dude claiming he'd worked construction on one of the old buildings. He said there was an extra room that got sealed up. So we took a look at it, and… we found one." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"What, an animatronic?" he asked. Jason nodded, his smile widening.

"Oh, it was glorious, man!" he laughed. "Exactly what I'd been looking for. And as an added bonus we even found some audio tapes used by the company."

"Audio tapes?" Dean said. "What kind of audio tapes?"

"I don't know, man. They sounded like some kind of training tapes for new employees, or something? I figured they'd be great to play throughout the attraction. You know, to set the mood." Jason replied, and then added as if on an afterthought: "I think it's the same guy talking, who used to coach the night guards."

"I'm sorry, coach the night guards?" Dean asked, wrinkling his eyebrows. Jason looked over at him.

"Well, not as much coach, as... encourage, I guess." He replied. "He'd leave voicemails on the office phone with tips on how to get through the night and stuff. Earned him the name Phone Guy as I recall."

"And you know this how, exactly?" Dean said, looking incredulously at him. A wide grin spread on Jason's lips.

"Remember that uniform Marc was wearing?" he said. "Belonged to my dad."

"Your dad was a night guard there?" Dean asked surprised. Jason nodded vigorously. "Old man worked six nights before they moved him to the day shift." He said, a touch of pride in his voice.

"Wow." Dean said, impressed. "So what's he think about this project?" he then asked, and Jason's smile faded.

"I dunno, man… He's kinda disapproving. A lot of people are." He replied.

"Oh yeah?" Dean said.

"Yeah, you know, this whole deal is kind of a touchy subject around here."

"Yeah, I'd imagine." Dean said.

"And I-I get that, I do!" Jason said, standing up and bumping into the table in the process. "But-but these people. They're dealing with it the wrong way."

"You think so?" Dean said.

"I know so." Replied Jason hotly, before sighing. "Look, dude, I get that this missing children incident was a terrible tragedy and all, but you can't just go and pretend it didn't happen, man! That's wrong. These kids don't deserve to be forgotten like that. They deserve to be remembered."

Dean nodded. He quite agreed.

"That why you're doing this?" he asked. Jason sighed again, sitting down.

"I dunno, man, maybe." He replied. At that moment the tunes of an old rock song filled the air. Dean searched out his cellphone and examined at the display. It was Sam. He looked over at Jason, who sat opposite him with an expression of mild curiosity on his face.

"Mind if I get this?" Dean asked. Jason smiled and shook his head.

"No, man, go ahead." He said. Dean thanked him and put the phone to his ear.

"Ragno." He announced, as to alert Sam that he wasn't alone.

"Hey, man, where are you?" Sam asked.

"At the theme park with Jason." Dean replied.

"Oh." Sam said. "You want me to head up there?"

"No, that's okay." Replied Dean. "I think we're kinda finished here." He shot Jason a glance. The shaggy, gangling man flashed a smile.

"Oh, okay." Sam said, and Dean could hear the disappointment in his voice. "You want me to book a room and wait for you there?"

"Yeah, I guess that'd be good." Dean said.

"Alright, I'll see you around." Sam declared, hanging up. Dean put the phone away and got up.

"Who was that?" Jason asked. He was over by the little kitchen area, washing out of the soda bottles.

"Oh, just my partner." Dean replied. "He just finished up researching his lead. We're gonna meet up a little later.

Hey, thanks for all the information, Jason. It's really helped a lot."

"Hey, my pleasure!" Jason replied, smiling. "I'm just glad I've met someone who's just as obsessed with this stuff as me." He let out a short laugh. "People like that are hard to come by around here."

"What about Marcus?" Dean asked. Jason shrugged.

"He's not really all that interested." He replied. "He's just helping out, 'cause, you know, that's what friends do."

"Ah, I see." Dean said. There was a silent chime and Jason fished a cellphone out of his pocked. He examined the display briefly and then grimaced.

"What?" Dean asked.

"My peeps…" Jason said, holding up the phone. "They want me home ASAP."

"You need a ride back to town?" Dean asked, more on impulse than anything else. Jason looked at him.

"For real?" he asked. Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, I mean, seeing if you don't have another car stashed around here…" he began, fishing for words. Jason cracked a smile.

"Thanks, dude!" he said.


	6. Riverside Motel

_A/N: So next part! Already?! Christ on a bike, that was fast! I have a little mixed feelings about this, but I hope you guys'll like it._

* * *

"Dude! Sweet wheels!" Jason announced upon approaching the Impala. Dean suppressed a satisfied smile.

Jason circled the car, examining it from every angle.

"Where'd you get it?" he asked, looking up at Dean.

"Belonged to my dad." He replied.

"Well, you're a lucky man, Mr. Ragno." Jason said, sliding his hand over the hood of the car. "She's a beauty."

Dean nodded acknowledging.

"So how'd you score this gig with the amusement park, then?" Dean asked once they were on the road.

"Waddaya mean?" Jason replied, shooting Dean a confused glance.

"I mean, it can't have been easy getting a spot in the amusement park for your attraction. Especially considering how most people in this town would rather see it burn."

"Well, lucky for me the owners of the park're from outta town, and think it's an excellent idea." Jason said. "'Course it helps that I've been a faithful employee there for almost five years."

"You work there?" Dean said.

"Yep." Replied Jason proudly.

"Night guard?" Dean attempted. He couldn't help himself. Jason shot him yet another glance, raising an eyebrow.

"Funny." He commented, before continuing: "I work maintenance, mostly. Sometimes I man the rides."

"Oh, cool." Dean said. Jason shrugged

"Nah, not really." He replied. "It's just your regular dayjob to be honest. But I like it. And the pay ain't half bad."

"But you live at your parents place?" Dean said enquiringly.

"Ah, that's just temporary 'til I've got this deal with the fright house sorted out." Replied Jason, a slight smile on his face. "Then I'm outta here."

"You're not staying in town?" Dean shot him a quick glance. Jason shook his head.

"I'm movin' to Windy Creek. Next town over." He replied. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love this town. I just can't stay here, you know? It's too… I dunno, stale, I guess. Figured a bit of distance wouldn't hurt." He leaned back in the seat and proceeded to look out the window. Dean said nothing, but silently felt with him.

Just as they pulled up before Jason's house Dean's cellphone chirped with a message. Dean pulled it out and looked at it. It was Sam again, texting him with the name and address for the motel.

"Hey, thanks for the ride, man." Jason said, getting out of the car. His mother was standing on the porch waiting for him

"No problem." Dean said. "Take care, okay?"

"You too. And good luck on the story." Jason said, before he turned and walked up the driveway.

"Hey, Jason!" Dean suddenly called. Jason turned. "Look, would it be possible to get a copy of your research? My partner, you see, is quite the bookworm. I think he'd like to have a look at your notes." Jason stopped halfway between the car and the house. On the porch his mom gestured her impatience.

"I could make a copy, I guess…" Jason said thoughtfully. "But it'll take time. It's a lot of work."

"Oh, there's no hurry!" Dean assured him. "Why don't you just stop by Riverside Motel when you get time?"

Jason smiled and gave a short nod.

"Yeah, okay."

"Hey, thanks!" Dean called as Jason continued on towards the house. "You've been of great help."

Jason gave a short wave over his shoulder.

"My pleasure, man!" he said.

Driving off, Dean could hear Jason and his mother arguing hotly as they entered the house.

Dean found the motel, not surprisingly by the river. A rundown old place, but not too shabby. And, of course, complete with the tacky neon sign by the entrance.

Dean pulled in on the parking lot and got out of the car.

He found Sam sitting on the bed with a bunch of photographs strewn around him.

"Hey." He greeted him. Sam looked up briefly.

"Hi." He replied.

"So how was the police station?" Dean asked, dumping down on the opposite bed and tossing Sam one of two beers he'd brought from the car.

"Uh, enlightening." Sam replied, examining one last photo before looking up at his brother.

"And kinda dusty." He then added.

"Yeah?" Dean said, taking a sip of his beer. "You find anything?"

Sam told him about his meeting with Mark Haddock – Dean had to be reminded who that was – and his discoveries in the police archives, ending up at the surveillance tape.

"I asked Chief Haddock about the original footage and he told me the tape had been ruined after a pipe burst in the evidence locker, soaking the entire room, and destroying several pieces of vital evidence from a lot of different cases."

"Bummer." Dean commented and Sam scoffed.

"Yeah." He said.

"So what's all this then?" Dean asked, picking up one of the photographs scattering Sam's bed. It showed a small room with a desk in one end and a worn office chair in the other. The desk was scattered with old monitors, cables and a massive metal fan. The entire place was covered in cobwebs.

The picture seemed to have been taken through a door with a similar door facing it.

"I asked the chief inspector about some of the other cases from the restaurant." Sam said.

"And?" Dean asked expectantly.

"Well, he was reluctant about it at first, but in the end he showed me a combined casefile he'd put together on some of the more minor incidents that had happened at Freddy's."

"And what'd you find?"

Sam cast a quick glance at the various photos strewn around him.

"Well, there was a break-in once when the restaurant was closed down for renovations. Nothing was reported stolen, but the animatronics had been trashed. The managers wrote it off as just regular vandalism. And then there's Scott Callen, the night guard."

"Yeah, I thought the police'd ruled out foul play on that one." Dean commented.

"Yes and no." Sam said. "The case was reported by a restaurant employee who came to work the following morning and found Scott's absence odd. He reported it when he checked the security office and found trace amounts of blood on the chair and floor in there." Sam said, pointing to the photograph in Dean's hand. Dean examined it again.

"There's no blood there." He eventually concluded, looking up at Sam again.

"Ah." Sam let out a short laugh. "You see, while the police lead their investigation, a restaurant employee" he cleared his throat. " _accidentally_ cleaned up the office."

Dean looked down at the picture again. There was nothing even remotely clean about that place.

"Bangup job they did." He commented, raising an eyebrow. Sam scoffed.

"So with nothing to go on, the police had no choice but to shut the case down."

"And everyone was okay with that?" Dean asked, looking incredulously at Sam. He was beginning to understand Jason's feelings towards the town.

"Well, Scott wasn't what you'd call a socially established man. He was a newcomer with no real connections to the town, _and_ he worked nightshifts, so no one really got to know him that well. The guy was practically a flesh-and-blood ghost."

"What, and that makes it alright?" Dean spat aggressively.

"Of course not." Sam said reassuringly. Dean exhaled sharply, rolling his eyes.

"So, what about you, then?" Sam hurried to ask. Dean looked over at him again.

"I met up with this Jason guy at the theme park, and he told me a little bit about the restaurant's history." He said.

"Okay. Anything interesting?" Sam asked.

"Well, a lot of it we've heard before, but some of it… yeah, pretty damn interesting."

"Like what?"

"Like the animatronics? Rumor has it the bodies of the missing children were stuffed inside them."

Sam raised his eyebrows appalled

"What, _really_?" he asked. Dean gave a smug nod.

"And he's got one at his attraction."

Sam got to his feet, digging his fingers through his hair.

"Crap." he breathed. Then he looked over at Dean again, a puzzled expression on his face.

"But, then what about the rest?" he asked. "There were three of them, weren't there?" At that moment there was a sharp knock on the door. Sam and Dean exchanged glances and Dean went to answer. After checking the peephole Dean turned to his brother with a soft chuckle.

"Jason! Hey, man." He said, flinging the door open. Sam came up behind him to see. Outside stood a tall, gangly man with shaggy blondish hair, reaching to his shoulder and soft, olive green eyes. At the sight of Sam he gave a smile and a wave.

"Oh!" Dean exclaimed, as if he just remembered that Sam was in the room. "This is my partner." He announced, pulling Sam up next to him.

"Hey, man!" Jason said.

"Hi. Uh, Albert Dinkle." Sam introduced himself.

"Jason Fitzgerald. Pleasure." Jason Grinned, taking Sam's outstretched hand.

"Hey, Jason. Why don't you come inside?" Dean suggested, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

"Sorry, man. I can't" replied Jason with an apologetic shrug. "I've got a couple'a other things scheduled. I just came to give you this."

He held up a memory stick.

"My work." He explained.

"Wow! That was fast." Dean said, taking it out of his hands. Jason gave a soft scoff and a shrug.

"Yeah, well, I figured you'd need it quick as possible." He said. "Anyways, I've gotta split. See ya 'round, Rob."

Dean gave a smile and a wave.

"Nice to meet you, Albert." He called, pointing to Sam. Then he spun around and walked across the parking lot. He was halfway across, when Dean called after him.

"Hey, Jason! Hold on!" he cried, stepping out of the motel room. Jason turned.

"Look, man, you've gotta stop doing that." He said with an amused smile.  
Dean let out a soft chuckle.

"Yeah, sorry." He said. "It's just… would it be possible for us to have a look at this attraction of yours? Tomorrow, maybe?"

"Sorry, man. Staff only." Jason said apologetically. "But swing by in a week or so. We should be open by then." He gave a short laugh.

"The park's agreed to keep a week open for Halloween, just for us." He cast a quick glance at his watch.

"But now I've really got to go! Catch ya later!"

Then he was off.

"Well, it was worth a try." Dean shrugged, closing the door behind him.

"Yeah, sure." Sam said. "Because we can't have a nice long look around, say… tonight."

"Actually we can't." Dean commented. Sam frowned.

"What do you mean we can't?" he asked.

"Place has a night guard." Dean said. Sam raised his eyebrows.

"A night guard?" he echoed in disbelief.

"Yeah, I mean nothing serious, just a friend of Jason's looking after the place. Kid named Marcus."

Sam scoffed, dumping down on the bed again.

"Alright then, so what do we do?" he asked.

"I don't know, say we're from health and safety?" Dean suggested feebly. "And that we're there for an inspection maybe?"

"In the middle of the _night_?" Sam asked, frowning skeptically. Dean threw his hands out, exasperated.

"Well, then _you_ think of something." He retorted sullenly. Sam thought for a second.

"Why don't we just go now?" he then suggested.

"What, this instant?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Sam said. "I mean, should be safe, Jason's off doing whatever, and this, uh, night guard is probably home asleep."

"But I'm hungry." Dean complained. Sam sighed.

"Fine. First we'll grab something to eat, then we'll head up to the theme park."

* * *

 _A/N: Deary me, an author's note at the bottom too? What has the world come to? So I figured some of you might be a little confused as to why Sam says there're three animatronics, when we all know there are four (in the original game... Well, five, if we count Goldie, but...)._

 _Don't worry, guys, I haven't forgotten one! I just thought the boys don't yet know about Foxy. Kind of like the way he was left out of the trailers and teasers as a surprise for the players in the actual game. I don't know... Hope you don't mind._


	7. Voicemail

_A/N: Here's the next part for you guys! I just wanted to once again thank all of you for reading and reviewing this story! It warms my heart to know people are genuinely interested!_

* * *

They were driving through town, looking for a decent place to eat, when Sam suddenly nudged his brother.

"Dean."

"What?" Dean asked, massaging his ribs.

"Look." Sam said. Dean slowed down the car to see where Sam was pointing. There, on the corner of the street, stood a very dilapidated old building. The windows were boarded up and the paint was peeling off the walls. There was a sign above the entry, and while parts of it had been broken off over time it was still possible to sort out some of the words. There was no doubt that it was the old restaurant in question.

"Wanna have a look inside?" Sam asked, looking over at Dean.

"What, now?" Dean protested.

"Just a quick look." Sam assured him. "Then we'll find a place to eat."

Dean sighed and made a U-turn, which would have been considered both rude and reckless, had it not been for the fact that the Impala was the only car on the road.

He pulled up before the rundown old building and stopped the car. Then he reached into the back seat to a duffle bag lying there and pulled out two flashlights, giving one to Sam.

"Let's go." He said, stepping out of the car.

The door of the restaurant was boarded up, just like the windows, but the piece of plywood had been pried loose at one end.

"Think this is Jason's doing?" Sam commented, pulling the plywood away from the door to let Dean inside. Dean squeezed past his brother into the narrow gap between the plywood and the old, faded door leading inside.

A bell rung meekly as he pushed the door open and stepped into a dark and musty hallway. The floor was covered in grimy, cracked, black and white tiles, and the same checkered pattern decorated the lower part of the wall. There were two doorways on the left side and one door to the right. Dean went over to the doorways while Sam pushed his way inside. The door snapped shut behind him with a weak clang from the bell. He turned his flashlight on and found Dean standing halfway down the hallway.

"Restrooms." He remarked, pointing to the two doorways. Sam went over to the other door pushed it open. It swung open with a dull creak, caught on something on the other side and stopped with a soft thud. A chill breeze met the brothers as they peeked through into the room beyond. It was a large room, most of it obscured by darkness. Several massive tables and toppled over chairs were scattered unorderly across the floor, with plastic plates, cutlery and various party effects littering every surface.

Sam and Dean made their way through the mess and shone their lights around the room. Faded posters and other decorations hung on the walls and in the center of the room a massive set of stage lights had fallen from the ceiling, crushing two tables. Dean clambered over the rubble and onto the stage at the front of the room. He kicked through some of the stuff lying there before he turned and shone his torch around the room. A couple of gaping black entrances in the back corner of the room caught his attention and he jumped off the stage again, making his way towards them.

Meanwhile Sam peeked through a door to the left of the stage marked 'employees only'. On the other side was a small room with empty shelves covering the walls and a large table taking up most of the floor space.

"Hey, Sam! I think I found the room Jason was talking about." Dean called from somewhere at the back of the restaurant.

"What room?" Sam called back, examining a dark stain on the floor with his flashlight.

"He told me there was a room that'd been walled up at some point. I think I just found it."

"Okay, hold on. I'm coming." Sam replied turning away from the door. "Uhm, Dean?" he asked, shining his light throughout the room. "Where are you?" There was no reply.

"Dean?" Sam called again, walking aimlessly towards a curtained off area at the back of the room. It seemed to be a second, smaller stage, closed off with a set of torn, purple, star-patterned curtains. On the floor in front of it lay an overturned wooden sign with the message ' **Sorry! Out of order'** written on it. Sam pulled the curtain aside slightly and peered through. Nothing but rubble inside, just like the rest of the place.

A slight movement out the corner of his eye made Sam shift focus and he noticed an obscure figure standing at the end of a long corridor to his left.

"Dean?" he attempted, walking down the darkened hallway. "Is that you?"

He shone the flashlight down the corridor and the beam hit the back of a tall, lean man with dark unruly hair. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and black pants. Sam frowned.

"Hello?" he called, approaching him cautiously.

The figure in the back straightened up a little and turned to face him. As he did so, his figure shifted with the all too familiar ghost flicker. Sam stopped dead in his tracks, staring.

The spirit stood still, watching him. His face and throat were covered in nasty gashes and bruises, and the blood was spilling onto his clothes and dying his hair. He opened his mouth and a weak splutter escaped his lips. Sam took a step back.

"Dean?" he called weakly looking back down the corridor. "Dean."

Looking back again he jumped as the spirit had moved closer, its face just a few centimeters from his own. Dark, bloodshot eyes watching him intently as it slowly lifted a hand.

" _Dean_!" Sam finally managed to yell.

The spirit pulled back, looking away as footsteps could be heard along with Dean's voice calling his brother. Sam frowned, watching the slightly flickering figure as it restlessly shifted his weight from one foot to another, eyes wandering aimlessly. Almost as if it was uncertain or afraid. As Dean's steps grew louder, the spirit looked back at Sam again, a nearly panicked look in its face. It raised its hands in a deprecating manner, as if trying to tell Sam, it wasn't dangerous. Sam frowned, watching it. This was unusual behavior for a ghost. What was it up to?

"Sam?" Dean appeared out of a doorway behind the ghost. He instinctively pointed his gun at it, but the spirit disappeared before he could do anything more.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked, putting the gun away as he hurried over. Sam let out a faint scoff.

"Yeah. I think so." He replied, staring fixedly at where the spirit had been just a moment earleir.

"Yeah?" Dean asked, examining his face. "Did it hurt you?"

"No, uh… I think it was trying to communicate." Sam said, reaching into his pocket where his cellphone had just let off a faint chime. Sam frowned as he examined the display.

"What?" Dean asked, tilting his head as he looked down at the phone. Sam raised his eyebrows, looking over at him.

"Voicemail." He said perplex.

"Voicemail?" Dean echoed. "From who?"

"Uhm… From here." Sam replied as he noticed a torn and faded poster on the floor at his feet. The phone number in the bottom corner of the poster was the exact same as on his phone's display. He aligned the phone with the poster for Dean to see.

"So, what, the ghost sent you a voicemail?" he asked incredulously. Sam only shrugged helplessly in reply.

"Well, whatever." Dean said, rolling his eyes. "Let's get outta here, I'm starving."

As they drove on, Sam sat with the phone to his ear, listening to the mysterious voicemails that had appeared on his phone.

He was met by a somewhat flustered man's voice.

"H-hello? Hello! Uh, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night."

He went on to explain that he'd worked in that office earlier and how things could seem a little overwhelming at first.

"But I'm here to tell you there's nothing to worry about!" Sam let out a silent scoff at this and couldn't help mutter: "Yeah, I'm sure." Dean shot him a brief glance as he swung in on the parking lot outside a relatively shabby looking pub. Sam just shook his head and lifted a hand in reply.

After a brief attempt of reading a management health and safety notice, which could only be described as vague and sketchy, the voice then went on to explaining about how the animatronic mascots were left in what he called 'free roaming mode' at night ("Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long."), and that if they saw you they most likely wouldn't recognize you as a person but rather as a bare endoskeleton.

"Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to… forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit." Sam raised his eyebrows at this comment.

"Um, now that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with wires, crossbeams and animatronic devices, especially around the facial area. So you can imagine having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort… and death."

Sam continued listening through the voicemails as they sat down by a table and ordered their meals. The first few messages were fairly uninteresting. Just the man congratulating his successor on making it through the night, and proceeding to explain a little bit about the different animatronics' behavior.

It wasn't until the fourth phone call things started getting interesting. Listening to it, Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Hey, Dean." He said. His brother looked up from his meal, a piece of burger sticking out from his mouth.

"Listen to this." Sam reset the message and handed him the phone.

Chewing slowly on his burger, Dean listened to the recording. It wasn't very long, and it didn't take long before it took an unexpected turn.

"Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow! Day four. I knew you could do it." Sounded a somewhat strained man's voice.

"Uh, hey listen. Uh, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow." At this point there was a ferocious banging on the recorded end, almost drowning out the man's voice.

"It's-it's been a bad night here for me. Uh, I'm kinda glad I recorded these messages for you," the man cleared his throat and more bangs could be heard. "uh, when I did." It sounded like someone, or something repeatedly hammering their fists against a door of some kind.

"Hey, do me a favour. Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits, um, in the back room? I'm gonna try to hold out, uh, until someone checks, uh. Maybe it won't be so bad.

Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what were in all those empty heads back there. You know…" All of a sudden the constant banging stopped and was replaced by an eerie music box rendition of some famous classical tune, which Dean recognized but couldn't name, followed by a slow raspy moan.

"Oh, no–" the voice was abruptly cut off by a loud, inhuman screech and the call ended.

Listening to this, Dean had completely forgotten to chew and now sat with the phone to his ear and his burger lifted halfway to his mouth. He shot Sam a dumbstruck glance, and his brother only shook his head, shrugging. The next message started playing automatically, and Dean gestured for Sam to get close. He held the phone out and they huddled together, listening.

The fifth voicemail consisted of nothing but distorted raspy voices, and heavy breathing. The brothers exchanged meaningful glances as they listened through to the end.

"E.V.P." Sam declared once the message ended. He put the phone away, looking over at his brother.

"You were right, Dean."


	8. Inside the attraction

_A/N: Hey guys... Sorry it's taking me forever to upload these things... I was initially planning to try and post this whole story before Halloween this year, but then October happened and, well... And with Sister Location being released I'm beginning to fear that this story is just getting horribly outdated. I'll take this moment to remind everyone that the concept for this story was thought up and written between the third and fourth game, so events from the fourth and fifth game will not be present in it. I'm sorry about that, and I hope you'll still enjoy this story for what it is. I'm very thankful for all the positive reviews on this. it means a lot to me._

* * *

It was beginning to darken when the brothers finally pulled up before the theme park. The orange rays of the sunset glinted brightly off the Impala's side view mirror as the boys got out.

"You got the lock picks?" Dean asked as he circled around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Sam nodded, shoving a small leather case filled with various lock picking tools into his pocket.

"Good." Dean pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and a set of saltrounds from the trunk and slammed it shut.

"Let's go." He said.

The mesh fence gate wasn't difficult to pick open and Sam and Dean soon found themselves on the other side of the flimsy gate as it locked into place behind them. They'd kept the flashlights from their search through the restaurant and turned them on as they made their way across the large, empty space beyond the gates.

"Okay, so where's this attraction, then?" Sam asked Dean as he shone his light around the area. There were a couple of shops and a small snack bar by the entry.

Dean shrugged.

"I dunno." He replied. "Up there somewhere?" he pointed his light towards the stairs at the other end of the open square. He recalled Jason and his friend coming down from there when he'd first seen them. And there didn't seem to be much else than gift shops and kiosks where they were now.

So the brothers made their way up the stairs and onto another open area with an enormous carousel in the middle and the rollercoaster whose top could be seen over the walls of the park to the right. On the left side was a bumper car track and beyond the carousel the park seemed to stretch on.

"Hey, Sam!" Dean called. "Check it out."

Sam, who had been busy examining an information board, put up in front of the carousel, turned and found Dean grinning at him. He was shining his torch towards a building next to the roller coaster. Sam followed the beam of light, and his heart made an unpleasant leap as his eyes fell on the twisted face of a giant clown. Dean laughed and Sam let out a pettish scoff.

"Jerk." He commented, rolling his eyes.

"Bitch." Dean retorted smugly. They went past the carousel and walked on down a path leading towards another, smaller rollercoaster and something that looked like a horizontal Ferris wheel suspended like a pendulum from a massive metal structure. Everything was shrouded in a soft darkness.

They spent another twenty minutes wandering around the park, looking for Jason's attraction, before they finally found it, hidden away a little bit off the beaten path, where the theme park met the woods. Even in the dwindling daylight, the boys could tell the attraction still needed a lot of work before it could be called finished. The sign, with the name Fazbear's Fright written on it, along with a pretty disturbing image of the animatronic bear, was propped up against some scaffolding, and the exterior walls seemed to consist of little more than isolation and plywood at the moment.

Sam went over to the nearest entry and pulled the lock picks out of his pocket again. This lock took a little more persuasion than the mesh gates at the park entry, but eventually it yielded and the door swung open without a sound. The boys did a quick scan of the doorframe to check for possible alarm systems, but there didn't seem to be any. Cautiously, they stepped inside and the door snapped shut behind them. They now found themselves in a darkened hallway. The floor was set in the same pattern tiles as in the old restaurant, and the walls were grimy and decorated with several faded posters. In the other end there was a second doorway, leading further into the attraction.

Sam pulled an EMF scanner from his pocket and turned it on. The little device lit up like a Christmas tree. He sighed.

"EMF's no good." He concluded, putting the scanner away. "All these wires and old electronics in here must be messing with the signal."

Dean went over to the other door, his eyes wandering the walls as he walked. He could already see two security cameras. Both seemed inactive though, so he assumed Marcus hadn't yet arrived.

He peered through the door leading to the next room as Sam came up behind him. The next room was a corridor similar to the first one, but with a few more decorations. A small amount of giftboxes were piled up in a corner, and a string of paper dolls had been suspended between the walls. On the floor near the giftboxes lay an empty animatronic head in the shape of a bird, with a light shining dimly through the empty eye sockets. Dean went over to it and poked it with his shotgun.

"Charming." He commented, turning to look at Sam. As he did so, he noticed a tall, dark figure in the corner behind his brother.

"Sonofa–" he blurted, fumbling with the shotgun and almost losing his flashlight. Sam turned on the spot and shone his light towards the corner. His heart skipped a beat as the light beam hit a tall and extremely decrepit animatronic figure.

"Dude, that's one ugly-ass sonofabitch." Dean commented, cautiously approaching it. He flashed Sam a quick glance.

"I dare you to give it a hug."

Sam rolled his eyes again, but went over to the withered mascot. It had a dirty yellow color and seemed to have once been in the shape of a bunny. Several pieces of the costume were missing and the wires and crossbeams inside were poking through here and there. Sam squinted, examining its face.

"Hey, Dean." He muttered. "Hold this." He held out the flashlight for Dean to take, and proceeded to place his hands along the costume's mouth.

"Whoa, what're you doing?" Dean called.

"I think I see something inside." Sam replied. As he pried the mouth open, he was met by a raw, musty stench. Sam gagged, covering his nose and mouth with one hand.

"Oh, god…" he muttered, peering through the gap between the animatronic teeth.

"What?" Dean asked, trying to look past his brother.

"There's a body in this thing." Sam said.

"What, one of the kids?" Dean asked. Sam shook his head.

"No, this one seems adult." He took the flashlight from Dean again and shone the light into the animatronic's mouth, where he could clearly see the chin and upper jaw of a mummified human head. He stepped back to let Dean have a look. Dean peered into the mouth and grimaced.

"Man, what a way to go." He commented, turning to Sam.

"You think it's this Scott-dude?" he asked. Sam shrugged.

"Dunno." He said and hesitated before continuing. "You know, the way these crossbeams here pierce the face… It almost seems like he was trapped in there, not stuffed, know what I mean?" He looked at Dean who only looked dumbstruck back.

"How's that possible?" he asked. Sam merely shrugged.

"I don't know…" he said. "It just seems that the suit somehow closed around him." Dean just continued to stare blankly at him, and Sam shook his head.

He went past Dean down the corridor and looked into the next room.

It seemed the entire attraction consisted of several, similar-looking corridors, each with their own unique decorations. The corridors connected like a maze, and it was difficult to figure out which doorway lead to what room. In the end Sam came to a second exit near a room he recognized (Dean had lingered behind to examine a couple of ancient-looking arcade machines they'd found a few rooms back).

It was the large room with a window at the front he'd seen on the flyer advertising the place. Sam walked past the window and looked around the room. He immediately recognized the worn-out office chair towards the back as the one he'd seen in the crime-scene photos from the old restaurant- office. And there, on the desk by the window stood the fan too. In the corner by the entry stood a large cardboard box filled with all sorts of parts, props and decorations, probably collected by Jason from previous restaurant locations. On a small table at the back of the room stood an old telephone and an answering machine. Sam scoffed. It seemed this Jason-guy had gone to some extreme lengths to keep the attraction as close to the real deal as possible. He went over to the table and checked the voicemail. Sure enough, there was a message stored on it. He recognized the voice as the same from the ones he'd got on his phone. Sam let it play as he checked out some of the other items around the chair.

On the wall above the phone was a monitor, designed to be pulled out before the chair. There was a similar setup with a similar screen on the other side. Sam examined the monitors. A brush of his hand lit them up and the screen asked him for a password.

At that moment there was the faint click of a door closing behind him. Sam turned around and stood face to face with a man almost half his size. He had dark, messy hair and was wearing a uniform similar to the one the spirit from the restaurant had worn.

The man froze as he spotted Sam.

"Marcus?" Sam attempted carefully.

"Yeah." The man answered reluctantly. "Who the hell are you?"

Sam let out a scoff of nervous laughter.

"Sorry." He said. "My name's Sam. I'm a friend of Jason's? He, uh, he asked me to look after the attraction for a couple of nights."

Marcus frowned.

"Why?" he asked. Sam shrugged.

"I dunno." He said. "He said you looked tired last time you spoke. Figured you needed a bit of a break." Marcus raised an eyebrow.

"He never told me this." He said, giving Sam a suspicious look.

"He didn't?" Sam asked, acting surprised. Then he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Well, that's Jason, I guess…" He looked back at Marcus again.

"Look, I'm sorry you had to come all the way up here just for this." He said. "If you want I could leave and–"

"No it's–" Marcus hurried to say. "It's alright. I'll… I'll just leave."

"Oh. Okay." Sam said, trying to hide the great relief he felt. He really had had no faith this little scam would actually work.

"Hey, take care, okay?" he called as Marcus disappeared back through the door he'd come in. Sam let out a trembling sigh, dumping down into the worn office chair. A moment later Dean appeared in the room.

He'd heard the conversation from a couple of rooms over.

"What was that?" he asked. Sam looked over at him.

"Night guard." He said. "We, uh, we got the place to ourselves for a couple of nights." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Really?" he asked. "What'd you tell him?"

Sam scratched his chin, still in disbelief that his lie had actually worked.

"Uuh… that I was a friend of Jason's and that he'd asked me to look after the place a couple of nights?"

"What, and he believed you?" Dean asked incredulously. Sam let out a hoarse laugh.

"So what about you?" he asked. "You find anything interesting?"

Deans shook his head.

"Nah, not really. What's all this?" he said, showing to the monitors. Sam shrugged.

"I don't know yet." He said, turning his attention to the rightmost screen. The one that'd asked for a password. "This is going to take a while."

"Well, don't let me distract you." Dean said. And with that he turned and left the office. Sam let out a scoff of laugher, shaking his head as he turned back to the monitor. He didn't really mind, though. He knew from experience that working on this with Dean in the same room would probably take twice as long, if not longer, than if he did it alone.

He rewound the tape in the answering machine and began the tedious task that was figuring out the password for the monitors.

"Hey-hey! Glad you could come back for another night!" Came the sound of Jason's voice over the phone. Sam knew he shouldn't really be surprised at this, but it came as a shock nonetheless.

"So, let me just update real quick, then you can get to work."

Jason went on explaining how the attraction was designed to take people through the attraction from the entrance he and Dean had come in through, then past the security office.

"Uh, yeah. You've officially become a part of the attraction. Uh-you'll be starring as… the security guard!"

Sam raised an eyebrow, wondering how Marcus had taken this the first time he heard it. The message then proceeded to explain a little about what was new and how things worked, and Sam began tuning it out a little as he worked on the password issue. He'd half hoped Jason might explain what the password was in the message, but of course he hadn't.

The first message ended and the next one began automatically; "Hey, man! Okay, I have some great news for you! First of all we found some vintage audio cassettes. Dude, these are, like, pre-historic!" A slight smile spread on Sam's lips. If Dean had heard what Jason called cassette tapes, he'd be throwing a fit.

"But I have an even better surprise for you, and you're not gonna believe this! We've found one. A _real_ one!" Sam paused his work briefly, turning his full attention to the voicemail.

"Uh, Oh-uh. Gotta go, man. Uh, well-well, look. I-it's in there somewhere, I'm-I'm sure you'll see it.

Okay, I'll leave you with some of this great audio that I found! Talk to you later, man!"

A bit disappointed, Sam got back to work, as the voice of the man from the messages on his phone filled the room.

"Hello! Hello-hello! Uh, welcome to your new career as a performer/entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."

He seemed more collected – although still a bit frazzled – than he'd been in the messages on his phone. Sam figured this was because he'd recorded these ones before the ones on his cellphone.

"These tapes will provide you with much needed information on how to handle/climb into/climb out of the mascot costumes. Right now we have two specially designed suits that double as both animatronics and suits."

Sam's attention was immediately drawn away from the password task again. The voice continued on, explaining about how the suits worked in animatronic form. They were drawn towards sound among other things.

He then explained how the suits were designed so that the animatronic parts could be locked against the sides of the suit, allowing a person to climb inside.

"Please make sure the spring-locks are fastened tight to ensure the animatronic devices remain safe. We will cover this in more detail in tomorrow's session. Remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."

The message stopped and the next one began; "For today's lesson we will be continuing on proper suit-handling techniques.

When using an animatronic as a suit, please make sure that all the animatronic parts are tightly compressed and fastened by the spring-locks located around the inside of the suit."

The voice then went on to explaining the dangers of wearing the suit; "Try not to nudge or press against the spring-locks at any time. Do not touch the spring-locks. Do not breathe on the spring-locks, as moisture may loosen them and cause them to break loose."

Sam raised his eyebrows. This could explain the body inside the animatronic at the attraction. If that had been one of the hybrid suits, and they were as unstable as mentioned in the message, someone could easily have been trapped inside one.

A suspicion only further supported by the next words on the recording: "In the case of the spring locks coming loose while you are wearing the suit, please try to maneuver away from populated areas before bleeding out, as to not ruin the customers' experience."

Sam felt a slight nausea settle over him as he heard this.

"As always, if there is ever an emergency, please go to the designated safe room. Every location is built with one room that is not included in the digital map layout in the animatronics or the security cameras. This room is hidden to the customers, invisible to the animatronics and always off-camera."

He let the voice drone on as he slowly got back to working on the password.

It didn't take long before the phone guy encouraged people to leave the hybrid suits alone, and not under any circumstance climb inside one.

In the very next message he told about an unfortunate accident with a suit at a sister location and how the management had deemed the suits as unsafe to use.

In the remaining messages the voice reminded people not to interact with the suits, and informed that the so-called 'safe room' would be sealed shut.

"Nothing's being taken out beforehand, so if you've left something inside, then it's your own fault."

As this message ended, Sam finally gained access to the monitors and was met with a brief welcome screen, before the screen switched to an image showing a camera feed of one of the attraction's corridors. The camera was labelled CAM02 and showed a rather eerie image of an empty animatronic suit – it was difficult to tell just what animal it was supposed to be – at the end of the long hallway. As always the walls were scattered with various posters.

At the bottom right of the screen was a map of the attraction, displaying the position of all the cameras, as well as two buttons, labelled 'play audio' and 'toggle cameras'.

Curious, Sam pressed the 'toggle cameras' button, and was presented with the enclosed view of an air vent. Sam frowned. Why would they put cameras in the vents? It seemed a bit pointless to him. He was pondering this when he heard Dean call in the distance.

"Hey, Sam!"

"What?" Sam called back, not looking away from the monitor as he toggled back to the previous screen.

"You know that thing? The-the animatronic?" Dean asked as he came sprinting, somewhat flustered into the office. Sam looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah?" he said.

"That was in the room with the gift boxes and that creepy bird-head, right?"

Sam raised the other eyebrow, nodding.

"Why?" he asked.

"'Cause it's gone now." Dean said. Sam's eyes grew wide.

"Crap!" he breathed.

"C'mon! Help me look for it!" Dean called over his shoulder as he ran out of the office.

Sam pushed the screen aside and got up to follow his brother.


	9. Phantoms

_A/N: Now we're delving into the parts of the story that I'm not that pleased with. This is one of the reasons why I've gone so long without posting anything. Hopefully you'll still enjoy the story, though!_

* * *

They walked carefully from room to room, shining their flashlights into every dark corner, which, truth be told, there were a lot of. Dean walked first, shotgun aloft, with Sam following close behind, wielding an iron pipe he'd broken loose from one of the walls. They tried walking systematically through the rooms, but as the corridors connected in several doorways it was easy to get turned around.

Eventually they found themselves back in the room with the arcade machines. As they walked past, Sam noticed a slight flicker of light on one of the screens. He slowed his pace, examining it. As he watched, the screen flickered to life, showing a rather grainy version of what Sam assumed to be a room in simple, 80's style video game graphics. In the center of the room stood a purple figure.

Sam watched as the figure moved on its own accord, leaving the room and moving towards a different figure. The two figures connected with each other and the second one seemed to keel over. Sam didn't know much about video games but he understood that the purple one had just attacked, possibly killed the other one. As the figure moved on, attacking different figures as he went, Sam realized the things he attacked were the original animatronics from the restaurant. The first one had been Freddy, then there was the bunny and the bird – he still wasn't sure whether it was a duck or a chicken – and a red one, whom he couldn't say he'd seen before.

After having interacted with all of them the purple figure was confronted by a set of different figures. These had big heads, and seemed to unsettle the purple one, as it visibly panicked. Flailing what Sam could only assume to be its arms wildly, it ran from the five new figures. It entered a room containing something that might have been arcade machines and a dark yellow figure, Sam recognized as the animatronic in Jason's attraction. The one they were now hunting.

It lay limp and motionless towards the right of the screen. The purple figure moved over to it, still obviously panicked, and even with the outdated graphics it was clear that he was struggling to get inside the suit.

As he did so, the five figures – which Sam now assumed to be the spirits of the five children – floated onto screen. They seemed to be looking around, searching for Purple, but as they couldn't find him, they made to leave. That was when Purple made the mistake of revealing his position. Jumping to his feet, he proceeded to – Sam assumed – laugh at the spirits. This move caused the suit to malfunction, and for the first time the arcade machine provided sound for what was happening. A rather sickening eight-bit crunch, as the old suit with Purple inside began to spaz violently. A red spot was forming beneath the suit as it slowly settled down in the same, slumped over position as earlier.

As the screen faded to black Sam was left with a rather uneasy feeling about what he'd just been witness to.

"Hey, Dean…" he began looking up. Dean had stopped by the door leading to the next room, and was gesturing impatiently at him. But this wasn't what Sam noticed first. The first thing he saw was the massive figure in the doorway behind him.

"Dean! Behind you!" he cried. Dean turned, raising his shotgun, but he was too slow and the creature was too close. Dean leaped out of the way as the monster lashed out.

" _Get down_!" Sam cried, swinging his pipe towards the figure. It hit hard, and sent it plummeting to the ground next to Dean.

Sam helped his brother up and together they fled the room.

They paused in the next room over, regaining their composure.

"You okay?" Sam asked, and Dean nodded, lifting his hand.

"Yeah." He said hoarsely. "Yeah. Where is it?"

Sam peered through the doorway behind them.

"Gone." He announced. Dean straightened up.

"Dude, we gotta leave." He said urgently.

"Aren't we gonna deal with the spirit?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, but we weren't counting on it possessing its own body. We've got nothing to fight it with!" Dean replied, and Sam couldn't argue. Neither of them had counted on finding the body to a vengeful spirit inside the actual attraction, and thusly none of them hat thought to bring salt and kerosene.

"Alright." He said. "We leave and come back with reinforcements."

Dean nodded.

"Agreed."

They ran quickly through the intertwining corridors to the exit by the security office. But as they made to leave, they realized the door was impossible to get open. The spirit had locked them inside.

" _Dammit_!" Dean exclaimed, giving the door a hard kick as he turned away. "Now what do we do?"

Sam turned too, digging his hands through his hair.

"I don't know." He replied. His mind was racing as he tried to figure out ways to fight the spirit, or at the very least fend it off. His eyes sought the office, and the two screens in there.

"I've got an idea." He began slowly. "But you're probably not gonna like it."

Dean turned and looked at him.

"We're trapped inside a creepy-ass horror house, with a crazed-up killer animatronic." He said, throwing his hands out. "Right now I'm open for suggestions." Sam nodded. Good point. He led them into the office and pointed to the screens.

"From here we can see the entire attraction, including the vents." He began.

"The vents?" Dean asked, frowning. Sam only shrugged and continued.

"I say we stay in here, and try to fend it off."

"Fend it off?" Dean asked. "Fend it off with what, exactly?"

Sam shook his head. He'd known Dean would react this way.

"I don't know." He said. "But if this guy, uh, Marcus can survive a whole week with this thing, then we can make it through one night. So what do you say?"

Dean hesitated for a second before nodding.

"Alright. So what do we do?" he asked.

"Check the cameras." Sam said. "I'll be working this other screen."

As they worked, Sam brought Dean up to speed on what he'd heard on the phone logs and the weird experience he'd had with the arcade machine.

"So you're saying some dude got sandwiched inside that thing?" Dean asked once he'd finished. Sam nodded.

"Seems so." He said. Dean grimaced.

"Man!" he said. "That sucks!" Sam scoffed.

"Yeah. Big time." He said, looking up from the screen, which had turned out to be some sort of maintenance screen, rebooting various systems, like the cameras, audio or air vents, should they malfunction.

His heart dropped as he realized they were no longer alone in the room.

"Dean." He said.

Dean looked up, but Sam wasn't looking at him. Instead he had his gaze firmly fixed on a tall, charred animatronic figure standing motionless over by the door. Dean got to his feet, readying the shotgun, but the creature didn't move.

Its head was tilted slightly, and it was staring at them with one dead, glowing white eye. The other eye was hidden by a scorched, black eye patch. This one was, if possible, in even worse condition than the one they'd already seen, with an arm and several pieces of suit missing. At the top of its head, right next to a small, pointed, metal ear a few colorful wires stuck out, pointing in all directions.

Dean frowned, examining it.

"What is that, a coyote?" he asked, taking a step closer.

"Aah… I think it's a fox." Replied Sam, he too examining the heavily dilapidated creature.

Then, without warning the thing crouched low and leaped towards them with an eerie, screeching hiss. The brothers flinched and raised their weapons. But then, as sudden as it had appeared, it vanished. Sam and Dean looked up.

"Where'd it go?" Dean said shakily, his eyes darting wildly around the room.

"I don't know." Replied Sam, he too staring aimlessly around himself, and clutching his iron pipe hard.


	10. Theories

_Hey! Guess who's not dead(Despitemybesteffort)!_

 _This is a part I'm not particularly pleased with. It just feels like a lot of loose theories strung together… and that's exactly wat it is, to be honest… I'm kinda just tossing things out there a little. I hope you'll still like it._

 _These theories do not reflect my own speculations around the game series and the characters. This is just something I've put together for the sake of this story. So that it would make more sense in the Supernatural universe._

* * *

"What the hell, man!" Dean cried as they walked through the silent park.

It was about six-o'clock and after encountering several of these weird phantom animatronics, and even the real one a couple of times, things had eventually quieted down and the doors had opened. Sam sighed.

"I don't know." He said wearily.

"No, seriously… What the hell!" Dean said, looking over at him. Sam gave an exasperated shrug.

"I don't _know_!" He repeated resignedly.

"What were those things?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head helplessly.

"I don't know." He said. "The missing children?"

"Well then, why would they look like that, and-and not, you know, kids?" Dean asked demandingly. Sam sighed again.

"Maybe it's got something to do with their bodies being stuffed inside the suits." He suggested. "Remember that case we worked in Cape Girardeau?"

"You mean that killer truck?" Dean asked, looking at him. Sam nodded.

"Yeah." He said. "Maybe it's something like that."

Dean let out a weary groan.

"Does that mean we have to find out what happened to all the suits?" he asked. Sam let out a soft scoff

"Yeah. Maybe." He replied, pulling a hand through his already pretty messy hair. "For now, though, let's focus on the one at hand." He shot his brother a glance.

"We need to find out who's inside that thing."

Sam slept in the car on the way back to the motel, and Dean collapsed on the bed when they got there.

As his brother slept, Sam pulled out his computer and began working on the E.V.P. message from his phone as well as going through Jason's research.

He was reading through a long list of restaurant-employees while waiting for the E.V.P. sound file to render, when Dean eventually stirred, sometime past noon.

"Morning." Sam said, when he saw his brother was awake. Dean groaned wearily as he sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Morning." He replied. "You had breakfast yet?" Sam frowned mildly, shaking his head. He'd been so engulfed in his research that he'd forgotten about breakfast.

Dean dragged himself out of bed and walked over to the tiny fridge behind Sam. It was empty. Not that he'd expected anything else. They hadn't had time to fill it yet. Dean sighed.

"I'm just gonna head out to grab something to eat." He said, turning to Sam. "You want anything specific?" he asked. Sam shook his head, not taking his eyes from the computer screen. The sound file had finished rendering, and he pressed an earbud to his ear, listening to it.

"Hey, Dean." He said slowly.

"What?" Dean replied. He was already over by the door.

"Listen to this." Sam pulled the earbuds out of the computer and turned up the volume. Then he played the four-second audio file that was the E.V.P. It consisted mostly of incoherent, low-pitched noises, but in the middle, they could clearly hear a deep raspy voice utter two distinct words. Dean frowned.

"'It's me'?" he asked, looking at Sam. "What's that supposed to mean, 'it's me'?"

Sam shrugged helplessly.

"Don't know." He replied.

"Well, why don't you work on that while I go grab us something to eat?" Dean asked. Sam nodded, realizing how hungry he was.

"Yeah." He said. "Good Idea."

A while later, when Dean returned, Sam was still sitting by the table with his laptop before him.

"So you got any news on that message?" Dean asked, entering the room with two grocery bags full of food. Sam shook his head.

"No, but I think I know who's inside that suit at Jason's attraction." He looked up, noticed the bags, and raised an eyebrow.

"You thinking about hibernating here, or..?" he asked. Dean looked down at the bags.

"I… well…" he stuttered. Then he looked Sam in the eye. "Shut up!" he said in a complaining tone. Sam laughed.

"So, what've you got?" Dean came around the table.

"Well, I thought it'd be a good idea to talk to someone who actually worked at the restaurant, preferably a night guard, and get their story." Sam began.

"What, like Jason's dad?" Dean commented. Sam looked up.

"Jason's dad was a night guard?" he asked surprised.

"I didn't tell you that?" Dean asked absently, chewing on a snack he'd picked out from the groceries. Sam shook his head.

"You think he'll let us talk to him?" he asked. Dean thought a moment, then shook his head.

"Not likely." He said. "So who else've we got?" Sam let out a silent scoff.

"Not that many, to be honest." He said. "Over the course of more than twenty years only five guys worked nightshift there."

He pulled up the restaurant employee-list.

"One's Scott Callen, he's missing, probably dead, seeing that his spirit is most likely the one haunting the restaurant. Then there's a Jeremy Fitzgerald, that's gotta be Jason's father, right? And we've got a Fitz Smith, he only worked one night, and has since moved out of town, and Mike Schmidt. He died in a car accident in the late nineties." Sam paused.

"Okay, that's four." Dean commented. "Who's the last one?"

"Vincent Sharpe." Sam said. "He's missing. And get this;" Sam pulled up a missing persons-article displaying a faded photo of a man, not exactly handsome, but not particularly bad-looking either, with longish dark hair kept under control by a ponytail and equally dark eyes. He was smiling but his eyes were focused on something to the right of the camera.

"He disappeared around the same time that room in the restaurant was walled up."

Dean raised his eyebrows.

"You think he's our sandwich?" he asked.

"That'd be my guess." replied Sam. Dean looked down at his snack – which just happened to be a sandwich – and grimaced. Sam hesitated briefly before continuing: "And… I think there's more."

"Like what?" Dean pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

"This Vincent-guy?" Sam looked over at him. "I think he might be the killer." Dean raised his eyebrows, surprised

"What made you reach that conclusion?" he asked. Sam gave a silent sigh and scratched his chin. He wasn't really sure of that himself.

"I don't know." He said. "It's just… I've gone through some of the restaurant-backstory, and… he's been present during all three tragedies. He worked there in the early seventies, when they found that dead kid, and when the other five went missing. He only just got fired after that incident in eighty-seven."

"He got fired?" Dean asked. "What for?"

Sam searched through the multiple windows he had open on his computer and eventually found back to the employee-list he'd been going through.

"Uuh… I don't know." He eventually said, raising his eyebrows. "It just says 'general unprofessionalism'." He looked over at Dean.

"But don't you think it's a little strange they had him fired after so many years of working there?"

"I'm still trying to figure out why you think he's the killer." Dean said. Sam sighed again.

"I don't know…" he repeated wearily, dragging a hand through his hair. It was difficult to explain to his brother he was convinced that Vincent was the killer because of something he'd seen on the screen of an old arcade machine. Truth be told, there was next to no evidence to even indicate that the figure on the screen had been Vincent in the first place. "It's just a hunch.

The thing is;" Sam continued, once again going through the windows on his computer. "I got the layouts of the restaurants here, and the one we were in? That's the last one that opened. The one that opened on a smaller budget after eighty-seven." He glanced up at Dean again.

"Don't you think it's a bit strange that the body of this Vincent-guy would show up inside an animatronic in a restaurant he was fired from years before?" he paused a second, before continuing: "I think he's the one that broke in back then and destroyed the animatronics."

"So the guy had a grudge." Dean commented. "Doesn't make him a killer."

"But what if he wasn't trying to get revenge?" Sam pressed on. "What if he was trying to destroy evidence? Or even get rid of the ghosts, only he had no idea how to do it, so when he tried, the spirits went after him instead and he had to hide.

I mean think about it; what else would possess him to climb inside that suit?"

"Yeah, but the ghosts went after anyone who was inside the restaurant at night. That's what ghosts do." Dean said.

"Yeah." Sam said, sounding a bit disappointed. "I know."

He thought for a moment and then looked over at Dean again.

"But what if the spirits were never vengeful?" he asked. "What if they were trying to deliver a message? Like Scott in the restaurant?"

"Message?" Dean asked. "What message?"

"The message of how they died." Sam said. He was getting more and more convinced that the children had not been posing any threat themselves, but had rather tried to warn people of the real danger.

"Think about it." He said. "There has never been a casualty at the restaurant between the missing children and Scott Callen, and the only other tragedy happened during the day. Vincent Sharpe had only just been moved to the dayshift the week it happened, after complaining that the animatronics were trying to get into his office at night. What if they were trying to confront him?

Then when he moved to the day, they tried to reach out to the next guard, or maybe they didn't realize Vincent had moved to dayshifts. And once he was fired, they laid dormant until he returned to the restaurant in the nineties." Sam stared intently at his brother, who chewed slowly on his snack, seemingly in deep thought.

"Alright." He said eventually. "So assuming you've got a point here, and this Vincent-dude is our killer. Why didn't the police deal with him back then? Why'd they arrest someone else?"

Sam gave a weary sigh. He really didn't want to explain this one to Dean.

"Because…" he hesitated. "Unlike this kid, Ralph, Vincent was a well-established man in the society. People liked him. They didn't think he was capable of a crime like that."

He looked up at his brother as he finished the sentence. Dean looked about ready to shoot someone.

"So you're saying the police might have known it was him?" he asked stiffly. Sam gave a slight shrug.

"I'm sure Inspector Haddock had his suspicions, yeah." He said.

"And yet he did nothing." Dean said spitefully.

"I know." Sam said. "But unfortunately that's not too uncommon in a small town like this. Think about what would've happened to him if he'd made the arrest, and then turned out to be wrong. He could've lost his job."

"See, this is why I don't like the police, Sam!" Dean exclaimed, and Sam nodded understandingly.

"I know." He said. Dean sighed.

"Well, whatever." He said. "It doesn't matter if this Vincent, or whoever it is inside that suit was a killer or the freaken' pope. We're gonna torch his ass either way, right?" Sam let out a flat scoff of laughter.

"Yeah." He said. "I guess."

After a brief silence Sam continued: "You know, I think I found out what happened to the other animatronics." He was watching his computer screen, once again going through the numerous windows there.

Dean scooted a little closer

"Oh yeah?" he said. "What?"

"Well, I've been going through some old newspaper articles and comparing them with Jason's notes, and I found this:"

He pulled up a brief article about a fire at an old warehouse. It was from the early two-thousands and showed a picture of a massive, fenced-in building engulfed in flames.

"The place was abandoned and used as a dump for all sorts of stuff, uh, cars, refrigerators, industrial machinery… It could be where the animatronics ended up after the closing of the restaurant, and the fire would explain why they appear burnt."

"Yeah, but not why they appear at all." Dean replied. "If they burned, it should be over. They should be at rest."

"Only if the bodies were fully destroyed." Sam noted, and Dean gave him a perplex look.

"Either way." Sam continued. "I think there's a simpler explanation as to why they're still here."

Dean raised an eyebrow.

"And what's that?"

Sam eyed him.

"Remember how Mom's spirit was trapped in our old house?"

Dean frowned, nodding.

"I think these spirits are trapped in a similar way." Sam said. "They're attracted to the energy from the spirit at Jason's attraction. If we destroy that spirit, these ones will disappear too." Sam concluded. Dean thought for a moment, before giving a half shrug, half nod.

"Fair enough." He said. "Let's get to torching."

* * *

 _So, I know Purpleguy has gotten a bit of a name and identity after Silver Eyes, but I like Vincent the night guard, so I'll keep him that way._


	11. Family Business

_I feel like I've neglected this story for long enough. Time to rectify that mistake. Hope you like this part!_

* * *

Later that night the boys once again found themselves outside the gates of the amusement park. They had agreed to wait with executing their plan until nightfall as to not attract any unwanted attention to themselves.

Dean had a large duffle bag over his shoulder filled with various tools for burning corpses, and his trusted shotgun in his hand. Sam too had brought a shotgun, and he had the lock picks in his pocket.

They walked swiftly through the park until reaching Jason's attraction towards the back. The place looked almost as it had done last night, with only a few changes done to the exterior walls. The sign had been moved away from the scaffolding and lay now leaned against a nearby tree.

The boys entered through the same door they'd come in through the night before, as it was the shortest way to the animatronic.

"Right, Sammy. Let's do this as quickly as possible, and get the hell out before anyone sh–" Dean stopped himself mid-sentence as he looked away from the door and down the hallway.

"Shows up…" he finished slowly. Sam frowned and turned his head to follow Dean's gaze. His heart sank as he spotted the two figures standing in the far end of the corridors. The faint light flowing out through the doorway behind them obscured their features, but he didn't need to see the faces to understand who was standing there.

"Jason." Dean said flatly, hiding the shotgun from view. "I, uh… what are you doing here?"

Sam could have facepalmed. Of all the ridiculous things to say.

Jason took a step forth.

"My attraction, remember?" he said. Dean bit his lip, looking at him. The tall, shaggy man didn't look furious. He hardly even looked angry, but there was a disappointment in his eyes that made Dean feel like a complete asshole.

"So I got a call from Marcus earlier today." Jason continued, glancing over at his friend as he stepped up beside him. "He told me he'd come here last night and met a guy who claimed he was a friend of mine and told him I'd asked him to look after the attraction for a while. 'Course I was thrown into a fit of near-panic, 'cause I hadn't done such a thing." His eyes narrowed, as he looked from Dean to Sam.

"Reporters, huh?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "Should've known you were lying."

"You know what, you're right." Dean hurried to say. "We lied. We're not reporters, we're–"

"Paranormal hunters, right?" Jason broke him off. Sam and Dean exchanged surprised glances.

"Here for a bit of thrilling adventure? Well, you can forget it. I'm callin' the cops."

"Look, this isn't what you think!" Dean exclaimed desperately as Jason reached into his pocket to pull out his phone.

"Just gimme a second to explain! One second! Please!"

Jason stopped with his hand in his pocket, and gave Dean an expectant look.

"Go on, then." He said flatly. "Enlighten me."

"My name is Dean. That's my brother, Sam." Dean said, pointing to Sam.

"And you're right. We are paranormal hunters. But not in the way you think. And right now you two're in real danger.

There's a ghost in this place, alright. And it can become active at any moment. We need to get you out of here."

As he spoke Jason shook his head and pulled his phone out, but Marcus looked startled by Dean's words.

"Hey, Jason…" he began. "Maybe we should–"

"Enough with the ghosts, already!" Jason suddenly exploded, glaring at Marcus, who had taken a step back in surprise. "It isn't real, okay? And if you think you've seen stuff move around at night, then it was your mind playing tricks on you. Or-or maybe some freak in a costume's snuck in here at night, just to mess with you. Heck, maybe it was these dudes." Jason snapped, showing to Sam and Dean, who couldn't help feel a little violated. "But ghosts aren't real!"

For a moment Marcus looked ready to retort, but in that that very moment a dark shadow appeared in the doorway behind them.

Sam and Dean went rigid, both readying their guns. Jason, his eyes on the phone, didn't seem to notice, but Marcus turned, and froze.

"Jason." He said, his voice stiff. Jason turned to look at him, noticed his gaze and followed it. At the sight of the withered animatronic the phone slid from his hand. As the thing moved forward, Jason pushed Marcus aside, out of harm's way. Unfortunately he didn't have time to move out of the way himself, and the creature grabbed him by the throat and slammed him hard against the wall. Jason let out a stifled groan, his feet kicking violently as he was pulled off the ground.

" _Nooo!_ " The cry came from both Dean and Marcus.

Both brothers raised their shotguns and released an onslaught of saltrounds at the monster. Unfortunately the suit, however tattered and torn, seemed to keep the spirit inside out of harm's way, and the saltrounds did little to affect it.

With a slow, raspy screech the spirit pushed Jason, still kicking and prying furiously at the animatronic fingers, higher up against the wall.

" _Jason!_ " Sam dove for Marcus, as he, in a fit of utter desperation threw himself at the creature.

The young night guard let out a string of fierce curses towards Sam, demanding to be released, and fighting hard against his grip. But Sam was superior in both strength and size, and had little difficulty keeping Marcus where he was.

Meanwhile Dean had moved in on the creature, and was attempting to distract it into releasing Jason. But the spirit seemed completely unfazed, and simply swatted Dean out of the way with its free arm. Dean hit the opposite wall with a hard thud and slumped over on the floor.

"Dean!" Sam cried, but his attention was immediately drawn away from his brother by the sound of a sickening crunch.

" ** _No_**!" The scream was agonizing to hear.

Marcus had gone rigid in Sam's arms, simply staring at the horrible scene before him.

Over by the wall, the creature had let go of Jason, and his body slid down against the wall, slumping over on the floor, his neck sticking at an odd angle and a trickle of blood seeping from his mouth. Next to them Dean had managed to scramble to his feet. At the sight of Jason's body, he let out a string of curses. The spirit, which had remained where it was after dropping Jason now snapped its head towards Dean, ready to advance. And to the brothers' surprise, Marcus was the one to react first.

"Get back to the office! _Back to the office_!" he pried himself loose from Sam's grip and ran swiftly past the creature. Exchanging a quick, astonished glance, the brothers hurried after him.

Back at the office, Marcus quickly got to work, activating the screens. He punched in the password with such speed, even Sam was impressed. The screens flickered on and Marcus toggled quickly through the cameras.

"Whoa, hold on!" Dean exclaimed. "The hell're you doing! We need to get you out of here."

"Well, you can't." Marcus replied, not taking his eyes off the monitor. "Once that… _thing_ is active there's no way out. Believe me, I've tried." He shot Dean a quick glance.

"And you should know if you stayed the night yesterday."

Sam and Dean exchanged yet another astonished look.

Marcus was back at operating the screens again.

"You're taking this surprisingly well." Dean commented.

"Of course I am. I've been doing this for five nights." Replied Marcus promptly. That's not what Dean had meant, but he didn't say that. In fact, he was a bit impressed by how he kept it together the way he did. Dean had expected he would explode into a fit of rage by all that had happened, accusing him and Sam of being responsible for his friend's death, possibly even throwing punches. And he wouldn't be wrong to do so, either, Dean thought. After all; if it hadn't been for him and Sam, Jason would probably still be alive.

But the short, dark-haired man seemed totally collected. Calm almost.

Dean was curious about this, but wrote it off as a sort of survival instinct, as they were still in a very dangerous situation, and let the young night guard work on.

"I can't see him anywhere– oh! _Dammit_!" Marcus muttered after a moment, turning his attention to the leftmost screen. Sam looked over his shoulder at the monitoring screen, which had gone a grainy black, with the words 'video error' displayed in red in the top-left corner.

In that exact same moment a blaring alarm went off, red lights flashing in the office. Marcus swore fiercely.

"What's happening?" Sam asked.

"Ventilation." Replied Marcus shortly, as if expecting Sam would immediately understand what he meant by that. Of course he didn't.

Marcus had his eyes on the leftmost screen, which had two error messages blinking on it. Sam watched him closely as he rebooted all systems instead of doing them one by one. After a moment the alarm went silent.

"So, does that mean something's in the vents?" Sam asked, referring to the alarm. Marcus scoffed.

"No." he said. "It means the vent's shut down. Needs to be rebooted."

He cast Sam a quick glance and noticed the confused furrow on his brow.

"What, that never happened to you?" he asked incredulously. Sam shook his head, exchanging glances with his brother. Marcus raised his eyebrows, staring at them. Then his gaze wandered to something behind them, and he drew a quick gasp, quickly turning away. Sam and Dean turned, both readying their guns as they noticed the same charred, foxlike creature they'd encountered the night before.

"Don't look at it!" Marcus cried sharply. "It'll go away."

The brothers quickly did as they were told, and to their surprise, after a moment the thing really did disappear, and not the way it had done the night before, hissing and leaping towards them. It just up and vanished.

"Seriously! What _are_ those things?" Dean asked, looking back at the spot where the creature had stood.

"Who cares?" Marcus replied, once again with his attention on the rightmost monitor, toggling cameras at a speed even Sam had difficulty following. It really was apparent the young night guard had been doing this for a while.

"Well, _we_ do, if we want to stop them." Sam replied.

"How come you know so much about this, anyway?" Marcus asked, not looking away from the screen. A frown burrowed deeper and deeper on his brow for each camera he checked, and he switched over to the vent cams. Sam looked over at Dean, who gave a brief nod.

"Well, it's kinda what we do." Sam replied, looking over at Marcus again. The young man pushed the screen aside and swung his chair towards them, raising an eyebrow.

"Come again?" he said. Sam and Dean exchanged yet another glance.

"Well, it's…" Sam hesitated. "It's kinda like–"

"We're hunters." Dean broke him off. "And this," he threw out his arms, showing to nothing in particular. "This is what we hunt. Ghosts, vampires, demons. It's all real. And we kill'em."

This earned him a murderous glare from Sam, but Marcus didn't seem to take any notice.

"So you guys… You drive around the country looking for monsters to kill?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah." Dean said, and Sam added: "Pretty much."

"Do you get payed?"

Sam and Dean exchanged amused looks.

"No." Dean replied.

"Not at all." Sam said.

Marcus let out a soft scoff.

"Wow." He said. "And I thought my job sucked."

"Your job _does_ suck." Dean pointed out. This caused Marcus to laugh out loud, and his smile – however strained – even lingered a while as he returned to his position before the monitors.

"Well, at least I get money for it." He commented.

Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother. This was the first time he'd experienced Marcus displaying any emotion beyond annoyance and skepticism. Not including the pure dread he'd shown watching his friend slowly choke to death at the hands of a monster.

"So how'd you get into this line of work?" Marcus asked.

"Family business." Both brothers replied simultaneously. Marcus scoffed again.

"Figures." He said silently. "Who in their right mind would _choose_ this line of work– oh, son of a bitch."

"What?" both brothers asked.

"It's right outside the door." Marcus replied. "By the exit."

Sam and Dean instinctively turned their gaze towards the opening to their left.

"What do we do?" Dean asked, tilting his head in an attempt to see the creature from where he stood.

"Stay quiet, for one." Replied Marcus silently. "It's attracted to sound."

"How'd it get there without us noticing?" Dean asked, sending Sam a quizzical look. "It'd have to've gone past the office, right?"

"It can move through vents too, remember?" Marcus replied, still with his eyes on the cameras.

"Let's hope this works." He muttered, more to himself than to anyone. He pressed the 'play audio' button and an eerie, hollow, childish, laughter could be heard over the speaker system in the next room over.

"What was that?" Sam asked, trying to shake the sudden feeling of unease that'd come over him.

"Audio file meant to set the mood, or something." Marcus said. "I use it lure that thing away from me." He pushed the screen aside again, turning to face them.

"Seriously, how did you two survive last night?" he asked, genuinely surprised. Sam and Dean just shrugged, exchanging glances.

"Luck?" Sam suggested. Marcus let out a silent scoff.

"Yeah." He replied, turning back to watch the cameras again.

"Well, he's left the exit." He commented, going through the cameras. "But I don't know where he went–"

"Whoa, hold on!" Sam interrupted him, and Marcus jumped a little in his seat by the sudden outburst.

"What?" he snapped.

"Go back." Sam said, and instead of letting Marcus carry out his order, he simply leaned over the young man's shoulder and toggled the cameras himself.

The camera showed the corridor in the other end of the attraction. The same room where the withered animatronic had first appeared that night and taken Jason's life. The tall, gangly figure still lay slumped over by the wall, a small puddle of blood underneath his head. But by the opposite wall lay a different figure. Sam squinted at it.

"Dean, is that…" he began, looking over at his brother, who had stepped up behind him to see. "Is that your duffle bag?"

Dean's eyes widened as he instinctively patted his body. As if he'd only just now realized the bag was gone.

" _Dammit_!" he cried, causing Marcus to cringe and turn to him.

"Quiet, you idiot!" he hissed. "It'll hear you!"

Sam sighed.

"I'll go get it." He said.

"Be careful." The words came from both Dean and Marcus. Sam nodded.

"I will." He said, and left the office.


	12. Lingering Spirits

_A/N: This part is a little strange... I hope you'll bear with me._

* * *

"So." Marcus said in a very nonchalant tone, as he watched Sam make his way through the attraction on the cameras. Occasionally he would skip ahead a little to make sure Sam wasn't walking straight into the arms of the animatronic.

"What?" Dean asked. He was standing behind Marcus' chair, watching his progress.

"Reporters." Marcus said.

"Well, it's not like we can come up to people and say: 'Hey! We're professional ghost hunters. Care to tell us about this haunted thing of yours?'" Dean replied. "We need to come off as sane while we gather information, right?"

"You know, Jason really thought you were, right?" Marcus said, pushing the screen aside, and giving Dean a dark look.

"Interested in his project? The stories?"

Dean felt an uncomfortable jolt in his chest.

"Yeah, I know." He said quietly. "And we were. Just not like that."

"This comes easy to you?" Marcus asked, resolutely holding Dean's gaze. "Lying to people? Gaining their trust?"

"It's…" Dean hesitated. It really did come easy to him. "Part of the job." Marcus rolled his eyes.

"Sure." He said. "Of course it is."

"So how'd you come to know him?" Dean asked, attempting to change subjects. He immediately regretted his decision as Marcus gave him a furious, almost accusing glare. For a moment none of them spoke, then Marcus gave a silent sigh.

"We grew up together." He said, looking away. "Practically like brothers."

The edged lump in Dean's chest grew harder as he heard this. He knew only too well how losing a brother felt. He jumped a little as Marcus turned his eyes back to him.

"Did you know he'd been working on this his whole life?" he asked, his voice stiff with suppressed emotion. Dean swallowed, nodding.

"He told me." He said somewhat reluctantly. He had a feeling his anticipated explosion was close by.

"Then you must have known tampering with it would crush him completely." Marcus said, his voice still level. Then a soft scoff escaped his lips and he rolled his eyes.

"But I guess it doesn't matter." He said quietly. "You don't care, do you?"

"Hey!" Dean snapped, suddenly feeling struck. "I care, okay?"

"Then how could you do this?!" the shout cast a faint echo through the room. Marcus was obviously either too upset to notice the volume of his voice, or he simply didn't care.

"Because that ting's dangerous!" Dean snapped back, keeping his eyes steadily locked on Marcus'.

"And you know that, don't you?"

"Well, I–" Marcus' gaze faltered and he let out a silent groan, closing his eyes.

"Marcus?" Dean asked, as the young man sunk back in his seat, clutching his head and whimpering slightly. His breaths came by irregular gasps.

"Whoa, _hey_!" Dean reached out for him as he slid further off the chair, but Marcus pushed him away, clinging to the armrest with his other arm.

"I'm _fine_!" he cried. "I'm fine. It's nothing."

Slowly he regained control of his breath and sat up a little straighter.

"Didn't look like nothing." Dean commented, watching him. Marcus scowled at him, but as he made to reply, a sharp bang rung throughout the attraction.

"Sam?" Dean called, turning around. " _Sammy_!"

When there was no answer, he darted for the door with Marcus following close behind.

Out in the first corridor, Dean hesitated a little and Marcus took the lead.

"This way!" he called and Dean hurried after him down the corridor and through the nearest door.

A few corridors further in, they once again paused and Dean Called for Sam. After that first gunshot it had been eerily quiet, and Dean didn't want to think about what could've happened.

"Try his phone." Marcus suggested, and Dean turned to him, eyebrows raised.

"His phone?" he asked incredulously. "I don't think he's gonna have the time to pick up."

Marcus gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes.

"No, but we'll hear the sound, won't we?" he said, looking at Dean like he was an idiot. After briefly considering the ingeniousness of this plan, Dean pulled out his phone and dialed his brother.

A moment later a clear ringing split the air. Dean turned his head trying to pinpoint the sound, but Marcus was already ahead of him.

"This way." He said. "Come on!"

Following the sound of the phone, they eventually found Sam crouching in a corner with the withered mascot towering over him. He'd had his gun knocked out of his hand, and he was bleeding from a cut on his cheek, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

Dean raised his gun and shot the thing in the back. If nothing else it would lead its attention away from his brother.

In the same moment Marcus dodged past the thing and ran towards Sam.

"Hey." He called, grabbing Sam's arm in a rather futile attempt to pull the man almost twice his size to his feet. "Come on, get up. We need to–" he froze, eyes wandering to the wall behind Sam, where a shadow had just appeared.

"Go." He turned around to find the decaying mascot standing right behind him. Marcus pulled away from it, his back hitting the wall, eyes watching it with a mix of caution and resignation, as if knowing there'd be no way he could escape it.

Behind it Dean was shouting and gesturing violently in an attempt to get its attention, but the spirit payed him no notice.

The creature lashed out and Marcus ducked, sliding onto the floor next to Sam. The animatronic fist hit the wall behind them and sent specks of plaster and dust drizzling onto their heads.

Sam cast his brother a terrified glance, but knew there was nothing Dean could do, the shouting didn't help and the shotguns were useless. The thing had them trapped in a corner. Before him Marcus cautiously shifted his position. Sam could see him move his head a little, probably looking for a possible way out. But the enormous creature did a good job covering every exit. Sam darted a glance towards the shotgun, wishing it had been just a little closer. The saltrounds may not affect the spirit, but it might distract it enough for them to make a break for it.

The creature lashed out a second time, and Marcus pulled back, collapsing against Sam with a cry of pain as the animatronic hand struck him hard across the face.

" _Marcus_!" Sam cried as the young man as he slid off him onto the floor. Marcus let out a stifled groan, pushing himself up a little, carefully sliding a hand across his face. Neither of them were prepared when the creature advanced on them a third time.

Marcus pushed back again, but despite his best efforts, the creature still got hold of him and pulled him up by the neck, much like it had done with Jason.

" _No_!" Sam cried, pushing himself up.

Marcus had his hands locked around the animatronic arm, kicking off against its body with all his might in an attempt to twist his way out of the grip.

Dean readied his gun and prepared to shoot the thing in the back again. But as he took aim a dark figure rose up behind the withered mascot. Both brothers stared wide-eyed as the shape grew and took a more solid form.

It couldn't be.

 _Jason?_ Sam hardly managed to mouth the name. But while the flickering figure had the same height and appearance as the tall and shaggy man, his soft eyes were unusually dark, and his face was deformed into a hateful grimace.

And before either of them could react he had thrown himself at the decaying animatronic, locking his arms around the tattered torso. The mascot winced, trying to twist out of the grip, but Jason held fast, and with what seemed a massive strain of effort, he pulled a second shadowy figure out of it. The costume went lifeless and fell clattering to the floor, dropping Marcus next to it. The young night guard fell to his hands and knees, coughing violently. Sam hurried over to him, his eyes still watching the interlocked spirits.

"Hey," He said, eventually managing to tear his gaze away from the shadowy shapes as he knelt down next to Marcus, examining him. His face and clothes were drenched in blood, and he had three deep gashes running from his neck to the corner of his mouth. He seemed dazed and disoriented, and Sam had no trouble understanding why.

"Hey." He said again, placing a careful hand on Marcus' shoulder. The young man flinched and looked up. His gaze fell briefly on Sam, before looking past him to where the two spirits were locked in an intense fight. At the moment Jason seemed to have the upper hand, slamming the other figure into the nearest wall. In the next second, the other figure vanished, and Jason stood alone on the middle of the floor. For a ghost he looked rather flushed, and his gaze sought Marcus'. Sam felt the young man next to him tense up a little. Jason watched him for a second, a sorrowful look on his face, then he gave an apologetic smile, before he too flickered and vanished. Marcus made to get up, but instead collapsed to his knees and elbows.

"Whoa, _hey_!" Sam cried, reaching out to him. With a weary groan, Marcus pushed himself up. He gave a soft cough and a spray of blood spurted from his mouth. Sam pulled off the plaid shirt he wore over his t-shirt.

"Here." He said, pressing the shirt against his neck. "Keep pressure on that. It'll be alright." Sam got up, holding his hand out.

"Can you stand?"

Shakily Marcus grabbed the hand and Sam pulled him carefully to his feet, making sure he was able to stand on his own before he let go.

Dean came up to them, eyes resting on the lifeless animatronic on the floor.

"You two okay?" he asked, turning his gaze to Sam, who nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I think so."

Marcus didn't reply. He didn't even seem to have heard the question. He stood watching the spot where Jason's spirit had vanished, a deep furrow on his brow.

"Get him out of here." Dean said, nodding to Marcus.

"I'll get the bag, and, uh, clean things up here." He cast another glance towards the tattered old suit on the floor between them.

Sam nodded again, and placed a hand on Marcus' shoulder.

"Hey," he said. Marcus met his gaze. "Ready to get out of here?"


	13. It Burns

They were halfway back to the office again when Marcus finally spoke.

"I'm not the only one who saw that, right?" he said, his voice faint. Sam cast him a quick glance. The young man had his head bent, examining the floor tiles as he walked. His expression showed nothing but exhaustion.

"No." Sam replied. Marcus met his gaze.

"So, what happened?" he asked. "Why is he– is that normal?" Sam felt genuinely bad for him. One thing was seeing a stranger's ghost, but when it was someone you knew, things became immensely more complicated.

"No." he replied. "Most spirits move on after death. Only a few determined ones stay behind. Some are forced to."

"What makes them stay behind?" Marcus asked.

"All kinds of reasons." Sam replied, his voice soft. "Unfinished business. Fear of the unknown. Fear of leaving loved ones. Sometimes they're drawn towards certain energies." Sam looked over at him. Marcus had lifted his gaze and looked thoughtfully into the air before him.

"In this case I think Jason's spirit and these… 'phantoms' are trapped here by this one spirit." Sam went on.

"Why?" Marcus asked.

"I'm not sure yet." Sam replied. "Either this spirit's energy is enough to keep them here, or they've stayed behind to try and warn others of danger."

"So these phantoms… They hiss and leap at you to warn you?" Marcus cast him a quick glance. "Why don't they just use words?"

"Most spirits lose their ways of human communication after a while. They're more like animals at this point. Hurt and lost."

Marcus just looked at him, his eyes slightly unfocused. Sam gave a silent sigh.

"It's a little difficult to understand at first." He explained.

"No, I… I get it. I think." Marcus replied, looking away again.

They had arrived by the office and Marcus stopped, looking into the room.

"Hold on." He said his voice a little stronger than it had been last time he spoke.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Just, hold on!" Marcus repeated impatiently, making his way over to the worn office chair by the opposite wall.

Sam sighed and turned to the door. He pressed down the handle and pushed, but the door wouldn't yield. A jolt of panic surged though him, and he vigorously shook the handle and turned the lock. In that moment, his phone rang. Sam pulled it out. It was Dean. He quickly pressed 'answer' and put the phone to his ear.

"Dean, it's not over!" he blurted out, about the same time his brother cried: "Sam, it's gone!"

Sam felt an ice cold lump settle in his stomach as he heard a massive crash behind him, and lowered the phone as he spun around.

The thing was in the office. The setup with the monitors over by the wall had been trashed, and Marcus lay motionless a little further off, seemingly bleeding from a new cut on his forehead.

"No." Sam rushed over to him and pulled him up. Luckily he wasn't unconscious, just extremely dazed. Sam grabbed him tight and rushed out of the office with the old mascot following at an alarming speed. At some point during the run, Sam became aware of the phone in his hand, and that Dean was still on the other end, calling for him. He put it to his ear.

"Hey." He said breathlessly. "We're fine." He cast an uncertain glance at Marcus saying this. But the young man looked better than he'd expected. Eyes focused and alert, and moving at a steady pace beside him. The head wound was thankfully not as bad as the other cuts and had already stopped bleeding.

"Where's the thing?" Dean asked. Sam dared a quick glance over his shoulder.

"Behind us." He said.

"Okay, good." Dean said. "Head for the other exit. Make sure you don't lose it. I've got an idea."

"Uh, okay." Sam said. "Care to tell me what it is?"

But the older brother had already hung up.

"What'd he say?" Marcus asked, his voice hoarse and shaky from running. Sam cast him a quick glance.

"To head to the other exit." He said. "Dean's got a plan." He refrained himself from adding 'I think'.

"Okay, this way." Marcus said, abruptly turning left through a narrow doorway.

They reached the other exit, but of course this one was locked too.

"So, what's this plan of yours, then?" Marcus asked.

"Not mine, Dean's." Sam replied.

"Really?" Marcus said. "Don't you guys have some sort of magical, telepathic connection?" Sam scoffed.

"That'd be convenient." He said, turning away from the door. The animatronic had appeared by the other doorway, slowly approaching them, as if knowing there was no way for them to escape. Its eyes were glowing ominously in the dimly lit hallway. Sam bit his lip, pulling out his phone. _Where was he_?

He was about to call him, when a figure stepped out behind the creature.

"Hey, _bitch_!" Dean called, his voice ringing loud and clear. The withered mascot turned. Dean held up a lighter and proceeded to light it.

"Game over." He said, letting the lighter slip from his hand. It hit the floor, and the small flame lit a trail of kerosene he'd poured down a moment earlier. The old mascot pulled back, but it was too late. In a moment the flames caught up with it and began eating away on the tattered suit. The creature gave an earsplitting, inhuman scream, spazzing violently on the spot.

It didn't take long before the entire corridor was ablaze, the fire quickly eating away on the interior walls and decorations. Sam turned and tried the door. With the ghost distracted by the fire, the door should be unsealed. And to his immense relief it was.

"Hey," he said, turning to Marcus. "Let's go."

They left the attraction as the corridor collapsed behind them.

Sam was surprised by how quickly the fire spread throughout the building. He saw smoke emitting from several external vent-shafts and soon the flames had begun eating through the walls.

Dean – having taken the other exit out – came running around the corner of the burning building.

"Hey," he called. "You okay?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah." He said, turning to Marcus.

"You?" he asked. Marcus gave a stiff nod, but in the same moment a nasty cough escaped his lips. He covered his mouth, and when he pulled his hand away, Sam saw it was glistening dark with blood.

"Hey." He said, reaching for Marcus as he swayed a little.

"Hey, come here." He led the young man away from the burning building and sat him down on a large rock. He pulled a small silver flask from his pocked and undid the cork.

"Here," he said, carefully placing it at Marcus' lips. "Drink."

The flask was full of Holy water, but it could be used as regular water in a pinch. Marcus managed a few sips before the water, mixed with blood spurted from his mouth, and he turned his head away, wiping a sleeve across his face.

"Take it easy, okay?" Sam said, examining him intently. The young man looked about ready to pass out. "It's gonna be fine. You'll be okay."

He got up and turned to Dean.

"Get the med kit from the car." He said, pulling out his phone. "I'll call for an ambulance." Dean nodded and turned, sprinting full speed towards the park entrance.

Sam explained to the woman over the phone what the situation was, and she promised to send them an ambulance. It would come from the next town over, as Ravenhale didn't have an ER at their hospital. Sam put away the phone, hoping it would arrive in time. He approached Marcus, still sitting on the large rock, with his eyes closed and his head resting in his hand.

"Ambulance is on its way." He announced. Marcus straightened up a little.

"And Dean's gone to get a first-aid kit." Sam continued, crouching down beside him.

"How're you holding up?" he asked. Marcus cast him a weary glance before pushing himself up, and taking a few shaky steps towards the burning attraction.

"Fire kills ghosts, huh?" he commented flatly. "Who'd have thought."

A small smile spread on Sam's lips.

"Well, not exactly." He said. "Burning their remains kills the ghost."

"Remains?" Marcus asked, turning to him.

Sam explained about the body inside the suit.

"Wow." Marcus said, once Sam'd finished. "Never liked that thing." He looked back at the burning attraction again. Sam let out a scoff of laughter.

"No, I'll bet." He muttered. They stood in silence a moment just watching the flames rage on.

"You know, the first time around I thought I was going crazy." Marcus in the end said, his voice quiet.

 _Understandable_ , Sam thought, but didn't say anything out loud. He had a feeling Marcus wasn't really talking to him.

"The second time I thought about quitting." The young man continued on, and Sam couldn't help himself.

"But you didn't?" he asked, his voice soft. Marcus shook his head.

"Couldn't." he said. "He was so passionate about this thing. I just couldn't disappoint him."

A faint smile spread on Sam's lips.

"You know, you're a good friend, Marcus." He said. Marcus gave a silent scoff.

"Sure." He said, his voice no more than a whisper.

Sam looked over at him. He had removed the shirt from his wound and stood with his eyes shut, swaying dangerously.

" _Hey_!" Sam dove for him as he suddenly keeled over.

"No." He knelt as the young man collapsed against him. "No! Marcus, come on, _please_!"

He pressed his hand against the wounds on Marcus' neck but he could tell it was already too late. His pulse was weak, and fading fast.

"Dean! _Dean_!" he desperately called, already knowing there was no way his brother would return with the med kit in time.

Sam drew a trembling sigh, uttering a silent apology.

"Sam?" Dean came sprinting down the foresty trail towards them. At the sight of his brother clutching the limp and lifeless body, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Marcus looked tiny in Sam's arms. His head was tilted towards the ground and his eyes were closed. He might even have looked peaceful if not for the cuts on his neck and the large amounts of blood covering his face and clothes. Dean looked up at Sam, and Sam merely shook his head.

Dean let out a roar of frustration, kicking the nearest object with all his might. It wasn't fair. Not after all they'd been through – all three of them – that night. He was supposed to live. They were supposed to save him! It couldn't end like this!

Bitter tears stung in his eyes, as he looked back at his brother again. Sam merely returned his gaze, a look of melancholy on his face.

* * *

 _A/N: So for those of you (Maybe) upset about Marcus' death, I did have my reasons... I'm just not very good at explaining them, but I'll try;_

 _I had originally planned for him to survive, but his fate kept mulling around in my head, how would he take the death of his best friend and so on. I just couldn't help that Him surviving this entire ordeal would lead to his untimely demise, or what was worse. And I dunno... I couldn't live with that image of him in my head. I'm sorry._

 _(Hopefully a few of you cared about Marcus, so this speech wasn't in vain.)_


	14. Epilogue: What remains

They'd discussed giving Marcus a proper Hunter's burial, but in the end decided against it and simply pushed his body in amongst the burning wreckage of the attraction.

"It'd be better if the townspeople found him like that." Dean concluded. "That way they can't blame him for Jason's death or whatever."

He looked over at Sam.

"If we took his body, they might think he skipped town or something." Sam nodded.

They spent another minute just watching the flames consume the remains of fright house.

The sign bearing its name – having escaped the fire – still stood leaned against the same tree. Dean went over to it.

"You know, I really liked him." He said, turning to Sam. "Both of them."

"Yeah." Sam said. "He kinda grew on you."

He looked down at his hand, where he was holding old, black cassette tape with blank labels.

"What's that?" Dean asked, coming over to him again. Sam held it up.

"He was holding it." He explained. Dean took it and looked at it. It was evident without explanation that it was the tape from the answering machine in the fright house.

"So what do you say, Sammy?" Dean asked looking up at his brother again. "Pitstop at Jason's place before we skip town?" Sam gave a short nod.

They left before the ambulance got there, and drove in silence back to town.

Before heading back to the motel, they stopped briefly at Jason's place and Sam put the cassette tape in their mail box.

Back at the motel, they packed their stuff and checked out.

The desk clerk, a middle-aged man who looked about ready to collapse from exhaustion, took their keys without a word.

As Sam put their stuff in the trunk, he noticed a small out-of-place item tucked away in a corner.

A smile spread across his face and he reached for it.

"Uh, Dean?" he said, holding it up. "I found your wallet."

* * *

 _A/N: So there you have it; a very short, mildly bittersweet ending. I hope this story lived up to your expectations and if it didn't, Well, I'm sorry. I guess I can't please everyone._


End file.
